Davie Allan & the Arrows: Devil's Rumble: Anthology '65-'68 : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

For a fat chunk of the 1960s, guitarist Davie Allan was the undisputed boss hog of biker-movie soundtracks. Pushing the California sunshine of surf rock through Gibson and Mosrite distortion boxes, Allan and his band the Arrows took garage rock straight to Middle America via gnarly instrumental scores for American International exhaust such as The Wild Angels, Devil's Angels and Thunder Alley. Allan (with producer and frequent co-writer Mike Curb) pumped out nearly twenty B-movie LPs and four under his own name in the five years covered in this snorting two-CD set, so he didn't have time for long solos. The '66 Top Forty hit "Blue's Theme" (from The Wild Angels) is, like most of these tracks, a two-minute paragon of death-race pith, with a straight-line melody soaked in dirty scream. A big exception: '67's "Cycle-Delic," seven minutes of Allan writhing in rusted-wah-wah agony -- like Jimi Hendrix in "Third Stone From the Sun," with Roger Corman riding shotgun.