“Ready, Steady, Go” by Sick Puppies

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Sick Puppies are back this fall with a thunderous roar in their new collaboration with ESPN in “Ready, Steady, Go,” a cover of Paul Oakenfold driven by its metallic riffing and fierce, anthemic lead vocal. “Ready, Steady, Go” is steeped in aesthetically-provocative lyrical imagery that is as captivating and textured as any of its music is, and despite the high-budget look of the cosmetics in the music, there’s never a moment where it appears to be the product of commercialism nor the result of some coarse pandering to contemporary trends. This is one group of rock n’ rollers that can be relied upon for their commendable artistic ethics, and those very ethics are partly what makes their latest release one of the more interesting that I’ve seen this October.

URL: http://sickpuppies.com/

In this version of the song, it feels as if there is no hiding the hockey-inspired subtext in the lyrics, but I don’t know that I would go as far as to say that the band has a particular tone that they’re targeting with this specific song outside of raw excitement. The allusions to a savior amidst the chaos of modern life, the grind of authority, and the discord it creates all add up to some solidly anthemic rock with a vicious, heavy metal-style pulse, and while it’s not exactly something I wouldn’t expect to hear on ESPN, it’s still enough to get your heart racing (especially when you’re already fired up about the current state of sports as a whole). Though I don’t believe Oakenfold intended as much, the way this narrative is presented by the band could allow for it to apply to their native Australian sports culture as much as it could the United States or anywhere currently celebrating the intensity of competition, and that alone says something about the versatility of this track as both a cover and a great composition.  

The guitars aren’t overly scooped in “Ready, Steady, Go,” and I think that by avoiding a more visceral sound Sick Puppies made it a lot easier for us to appreciate the harmonies that this song is sporting throughout the several gripping minutes that it lasts. With the riffing conservatively mixed as to keep the distortion from spilling into the vocal, bass, and drums, there’s a clarity to this single that just wouldn’t have been there otherwise (and has been missing from the bulk of rock and metal songs that I’ve been reviewing over the past few months). Sick Puppies aren’t trying to stroke their egos with this number; if anything, they’re steering clear of the sort of overindulgences that have cut too many of their predecessors down in their prime. 

SMART URL: https://lnk.dmsmusic.co/readysteadygo

Hockey buffs, metalheads, and rockers alike will want to check out this most recent studio work from Sick Puppies the next time that they’re in front of the TV to catch a hot NHL matchup on ESPN, as it most definitely presents audiences with one of the more complete and robust sounds that the band has produced thus far in their career together. Though it has moments of Disturbed-like machismo, I think that this cover version of “Ready, Steady, Go” is a lot more efficient than most compositions of its kind are, and while it’s not exactly a departure from the style of play that they introduced us to early on in their campaign, this is undeniably the most cohesive that they’ve ever sounded as a group on or off the small screen.  

Trace Whittaker