Danko Jones never has it easy. The riff-rock trio isn't given the credit it deserves for keeping hearts aflutter and hips a-shakin' via no-frills boogie riffs reminiscent of Thin Lizzy battling with AC/DC on a particularly testosterone-fuelled night. Instead, it’s attacked for being “too simplistic” and therefore not “cool” enough to fit into Canada's underground, where apparently one has to be as expeditious as Swallowing Shit or technical as Razor to get any street cred.
With its fifth full-length, Below the Belt, the Toronto-based power trio finally does away with actually caring what we think — not that it ever held much merit to begin with — and gets down to brass tacks. The resulting 11 tracks are no less primal, guttural or catchy than any of the band's previous outings (feeling closest to 2003's We Sweat Blood), but this time around, there is a deeper degree of explosive energy and refined confidence as opposed to outright cockiness. Fast yet thick, sinewy but flexible, Below the Belt is more of the pelvic rock we know and love from Danko. But this time around, one can really tell the band just doesn't give a shit what anyone else has to say about how it should do it.
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