Based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Necktie Social was formed at the dawn of 2022 and combines the talents of Joey Torres on guitar, Dusty Owen on vocals, Corey Davis on drums, and Jacob Veal on bass. They describe themselves as dirty rock and roll, which has an element of truth to it. Their riff-heavy songs are laden with gritty distortion and carry lyrics that cling to the many rebel-without-a-cause tropes that made rock what it is, so in that sense, yes, they play dirty rock and roll.
But their EP Red Wine Haze, which they dropped in January, testifies to something else altogether. Necktie Social is a polished rock band whose clever songs and dead-serious musicianship reveal themselves from the bones of the riffs on which they are composed. Beautiful melodic ideas sit juxtaposed with bluesy figures, and straight-ahead vocal melodies ride on unusual harmonic changes. Alas, it may also be that those classic rebel tropes disguise cautionary tales.
The EP opens with “Devil’s Backbone,” a growling, wrong-side-of-the-tracks narrative with a supernatural flair about a demonic character drinking awful whiskey and counting up souls, leading Owen to the chorus: “I was born in the Devil’s Backbone/ A man on the run, they cast their stones/ Born in sin, I guess that’s just the way it goes.” Meanwhile, Torres worries the main riff, turning it back and forth along two different routes to the same conclusion, much like the character in the song who pleads for someone to ease his soul, yet ends up with a pocket of fool’s gold. The strange harmonic twists and turns of the song’s interior section disorient the listener but in the best way possible. It’s music that describes the story, and if there’s a template for the EP here, it’s in the way the two lead voices of Owen and Torres’ guitar interact over the solid foundation of the rhythm section.
It’s an open question whether Torres is a foil for Owen or the other way around. Whereas Torres’ guitar is stinging, serpentine, and wily, Owen’s voice is well-rounded in its timbre, keeping an edge of grit as he holds steadfastly to the melody with professional ease. In many ways, Owen is as much an anchor for the guitar as the rhythm section, allowing Torres to shift the terrain underneath or soar above with beautiful melodic lines. There are obvious points of comparison to Van Halen, but ultimately Necktie Social is a different, bluesier animal that is felt in Owen’s vocal texture as much as Torres’ approach on the guitar.
“Lost My Soul in Georgia” embodies this distinction. Davis and Veal nail down an unhurried, rock-solid groove that allows Torres to balance sketches of chords with blues riffs while Owen paints scenes of a relationship in collapse punctuated with the occasional witty aside: “I’m chasing whiskey and the bottle’s gonna lose.” This song also marks Torres’ first solo break on the record, busting out of the bridge section with celebratory liberation that contrasts nicely with the lyrical feeling of entrapment.
Similarly, the title track introduces listeners to the well-known woman of rock and roll fantasy. Torres and Veal chunk out the simple groove while Torres’ fills elevate this song far higher than the woman “running red lights in a red wine haze” probably deserves. It’s also the number where Torres gives a killer solo on the outro—the best one on the record, hands down. He is well aware of all the places former masters have gone and creates compelling ideas and interesting figures without making them sound like mimicry or strings of paper fresh out of the shredder.
Necktie Social is a band that has found its niche and is sticking to it. Other than some keyboards in the background and harmony vocals, don’t expect a huge tonal palette. But it’s a measure of their talent and tightness as a group that they can keep those elements interesting right up to the end. After an EP of carefully plotted tempos that neither drag nor rush off at break-neck speed, Red Wine Haze’s closer, “Hello Or Goodbye” is a beautiful ballad that creates a nice enclosure. While the EP opens with a man on the run, “Hello Or Goodbye” confides “If you’re leaving, you gotta let me go/ I’m tired of running, in case you didn’t know.” It has the effect of casting all the old tropes in a different light, giving Red Wine Haze a layer of meaning to ponder, something not all rock bands can claim to have achieved.
Christopher Raley