Derin Dow

Derin Dow is a singer, songwriter and producer who also plays guitar and bass. Derin's musical influences include Boston, The Eagles and Styx. Dow's sound is classic yet contemporary. His thirteen-track CD spans the gamut from ballads to high octane rockers. Derin pens intelligent lyrics woven into musical tapestries that unfold in colorful guitar solos. Dow aims for a live sound on his record using few over dubs. Derin is a pro who surrounds himself with other veteran players, thus Retroactive is solid straight through. The CD opens strong with the energetic Friday. It has red hot guitar leads and thoughts that any overworked person can relate too. Yet the hook and more sizzling guitar licks set Derin and the listener free. Derin describes Highways as an opus that came from two different songs (a ballad and an instrumental). The track is expansive as the story of loss flows into innovative instrumentation and the chorus filled with rich spiritual imagery. Derin Dow is a multi-talented artist and Retroactive is timeless!
• Recommended Tracks: (1,10) [USA/CA 2006 - web] (2006 Review by Laura Turner Lynch for Kweevak.com)
- Laura Turner Lynch

Derin Dow *Retroactive*, totally classic sounding kick-ass melodic hard rock AOR pop-prog (thanks to synth/Hammond/clavinet/rhodes parts) via cdbaby.com from Cali; think the Nuge side of early Foreigner, maybe? Knocking heads and riding stars. Dude sings like a slightly higher-pitched Lou Gramm, though whatever more accurate description comes to George's mind when he hears it will make me slap my head. Derringer? I dunno. Extremely catchy stuff, though, and I'm only through the first eight tracks. (Well, the third song "Door to Your Heart" starts a little slower than some others, but then it soars, and a swinging ripping guitar instrumental called "Lower the Boom" comes next.) My favorite chorus so far is in "Right Side of the Road" : "And now all that is left to me/Is that old 12-string and an '84 Caravan/And it's all I can do/To keep it on the right side of the road." Every song on the lyric sheet comes equipped with its own printed bible verse (old AND new testaments!), though how those figure in the lyrics is not at all clear. In the picture on the inner sleeve Derin's got a demonic goatee and long lovely locks and his guitar is frying to death with smoke coming out from all the wicked chords he's been banging, and his band knows how to keep the rhythm swinging while he bangs. Came out in 2005, I kid you not.
(oops, turns out a guy called Chris Pinnick plays lead guitar in "Lower the Boom" and "Right Side of the Road" But Derin more than holds his own when Chris ain't there. Also, "Slave Train" is a protest about how all he sees when he looks around America is luxury next to misery in the tradition of say "Golden Country" by REO, at least when it speeds up, and its slow parts are um probably in the tradition of some Hendrix song or something.)
Speaking of weekends, the obvious alternate-universe car radio rock hit on Derin Dow's album is the opener, "Friday," a 5 pm end-of-week whistle blower blowout firmly in the "Working for the Weekend"/"Weekend Warrior" tradition. I still can't quite put my finger on who Derin sounds like -- Foreigner and Loverboy and Nugent aren't quite right. If anybody listens to the songs on his cdbaby.com page and figures it out, please let me know.
And the closing instrumental "Feelin' Free" (also with Pinnick on lead) is total smooth jazz (of the funky variety)!

-- xhuxk (xedd...), January 22nd, 2006.
- Chuck Eddy a.k.a "xhuxk"