Classic British Blues-edged rock
Now this is a fine collection of songs to start the year from a band that has a real Blues-Rock edge to their sound but yet brings their own personality to the table too. Lead single ‘Thunder Child’ opens proceedings and really does manage to capture the style, and there’s an immediate and obvious reverence for the greats of the past. But there’s more and on display is the craft of a band that draw their classic rock influences from a broad field and add a dash of Southern (USA) grit into the mix in equal measure to more contemporary influences.
Second up ‘Lions Blood’ shows that simplicity is often the best proposition, it’s an angry song lit up by an off-centre chorus and neat breakdown and works nicely, before ‘Secrets’ rides in boasting a deep groove: it’s a looser song and when those guitars kick in at two and a half minutes in you feel like punching the air.
‘Rich Man’ gets you thinking – there’s a lot going on here – from hits of White Stripes and Black Keys to deeper shades and tastes of eighties alt and sixties art rock before a change hits – there’s a hint of Bowie to the acoustic guitar that opens ‘I Hope’ but a Country flavour to the verse and a downcast feel to the chorus before the vocal opens up giving it an almost Folk feel and a nice diverse flavour to the stew.
The mood and stripped back feel is retained for ‘Let’s Misbehave’ before it crashes into life like a British ‘Drive By Truckers’ dark ballad and ends with a searing guitar and a vocal that seems to be searching somewhere between Elvis and Chris Isaac, it’s beautifully compelling.
‘Who Needs a Soul’ is classic hard rock with a dirty swagger and edge that’s too knowingly cool to be a simple proposition, there’s more layers at play here and it’s the same with ‘Be Your Man’ which has a big blues rock bluster but like its predecessor it’s not as simple as that – sure this is 70’s blues rock in essence but through an almost 90’s alt rock filter via a Jim Morrison fronted late eighties version of The Cult
‘Hurricane’ is where all of that comes to fruition it’s wonderfully reminiscent of so much groundbreaking rock but decidedly hard to nail a genre label to – this is a band that you’ll hear different things in depending on your own listening history.
We run out just as adeptly as we came in: ‘I Don’t Believe’ again references a free blues rock and searches for an answer to the meaning of life in its free-form breakdown before placing pedal to the metal and kicking up dust, whilst ‘City Lights’ that closes is syrupy darkness that broods and staggers beautifully.
I get all kinds of glimpses from this record from a Southern Rock Doors to a British Blues acid flashback. It’s as intriguing as it’s compelling
