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SXSW review: Death
For all the feel-good backstory of the Hackney brothers’ long-delayed success, there’s still the problem of their name - Death - since there aren’t many bands playing right now that are more full of life and joy. That feeling was unmistakable and contagious Saturday during the trio’s show at The Mohawk, playing the proto hard rock/punk they wrote (with deceased brother/guitarist David Hackney) almost 40 years ago and was rediscovered by the masses last year.
Smiles honestly never left the faces of Dannis Hackney (drums), Bobby Hackney and guitarist Bobby Duncan as the band powered through its short discography, most of it written before punk had even been given a name and the ink on the pages of rock’s rule book was still drying. That’s what’s most fascinating about Death, the trapped-in-amber feel of it all. “Keep On Knocking” merges boogie rock feel-good with the scrappy grit Rocket From the Tombs was crafting in Ohio right around the time Death was banging around the garages of Detroit, and “Politicians In My Eyes” was/is a brainy middle finger to the Vietnam-era (now Afghanistan) strife chafing at the populace.
One of the great questions lingering since Death was scraped from history’s dustbin was “What’s next?” since the songs the band trots out every night are approaching middle age and you can only go so long on nostalgia. Bobby Hackney addressed that issue (while also paying respect to his departed brother on what would have been his birthday), saying a new Death record made of rewritten demos from its early days is on its way soon.
While that’s still not technically new stuff (what will new-millenium Death sound like… hmmm?) it’s gratifying to know there are still more days ahead for the band, and that we’ll all get more chances to see the brothers +1 spreading their infectious love of music and life for a while more to come.
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