Right after Frank Sinatra died, there were all these interviews and retrospectives on his career and the songs he sang. Everyone said he was great, everyone said he was talented, and everyone said you could really believe that he experienced everything he sang about, he really felt all the emotions. I've never believed it, I've never believed that emotional songwriting could be genuine when you get down to it. Every singer and every songwriter I've heard has always been an actor of some sort.

I'm more doubtful about that now. Kid Dakota, if they're actors, are some of the best I've ever come across. Darren Jackson's writing and performance banish any thoughts that what he's doing is a put-on. "Smokestack" is in the beginning very good songwriting; together with Jackson's half-apathetic, half-tortured voice and a stripped-down instrumental arrangement, it becomes one of the better rock songs I've heard in quite a while.

There's no bass to be found here, no synths, none of that. Just guitars and drums and voices. But it doesn't hurt the sound. The music is as simple and unpretentious as anyone's heart could desire, and while I usually start getting bored once a song hits the four-minute mark, I was still ready for more as the tune reached its end at 4:48.

I'm searching for a little criticism here, but I'm glad to have hit on a song that doesn't need it that much. Jackson's diction could be a little better, as even after fifteen or twenty listens some words unburied in the mix are difficult to make out. The recording quality is professional but not incredible, though the fact that the engineering doesn't draw attention to itself one way or the other is a good thing.

I recommend this song for download. Right now. It's rare to find a rock group on mp3.com really worth listening to, but Kid Dakota is more worthy of being heard than most of the stuff you'd find even in a music store. Any music store. Anywhere.

--Mike Schorsch