The Wayside Shakeup
Album: Optimistic
Label: Self released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.thewaysideshakeup.com

Philadelphia is not a city that I would immediately connect to Americana and yet it's the city that the Wayside Shakeup call home and the highly positively charged "Optimistic" is album number two for the combo so they must be doing something right.

One of the things that comes to mind early on is the band's use of harmonic sing-a-longs, to draw you in, it's not long before a sense of dignity preservation stops you joining in, particularly if you're in company, but I guess that misguided sense of dignity is why I'm a music fan and these boys are the band.

The other thing that they seem to be doing right it also the one that gives the biggest clue as to why an Americana band survives on the Streets of Philadelphia, a funk pop infusion that provides a surprisingly complimentary backdrop to the sound, a sense of if you can't beat them join them, but do it differently.

At the core of the band are long standing friends, guitarists and vocalists Chris D'Antonio and Rob Volansky who were joined by a trio of additional musicians back in 2011, all of whom brought their own influences and the sound that has come out of that melting pot has proved to be a great combination of voice and melody in that aforementioned Americana pop funk crossover.

You won't find many bands that have got a sound like this and that's not a bad thing, it's good to be different, not part of a scene, more a bridging point.

Neil King