This is the second album by the Liverpool five-piece since they formed in 2018. They toured extensively before the pandemic and have done several gigs and festivals since. I had the pleasure of seeing them at Steelhouse 2021 and they are a great bunch of guys to talk to. When the opportunity to review their album came up, Monk thought I might like the chance to get my teeth into it. Compound this with the recent interview with Dan Byrne at this year’s Steelhouse and it was a no brainer.
With four tracks already released from the album it just gave me the chance to get a sneaky listen to the remainder of the album. Whilst the majority of the album is typical raucous good old fashioned rock ‘n’ oll there are softer sides demonstrated in the ten-track offfering.
The opening track ‘Believe’ is true to their style, with soaring vocals and heavy riffage and the mix is very clear. With a voice like Dan Byrne it really needs to sit on top of the mix and it does this throughout the album. Well done. Recorded towards the end of the pandemic much of the music was written independently of each other (as Dan explained in that interview). Whilst this may have been a challenge, it doesn’t come across in the quality of the music on offer. What it may have done is given birth to different uses of instrumentation to the original intent of the person writing it.
It is bivouac that the band listen to other contemporary artists as I cant hear the stylistic influence of Those Damn Crows in the lyrics of ‘Take You Out’ and Mason Hill in ‘See You Again’ and ‘Broken Home’, my only criticism is the guitar solo in the last track at the breakdown is a bit too staccato when compared to the rest of the track or may just be missing a few notes, but this doesn’t detract from the quality on offer.
I’m always a sucker for acoustic guitar playing, so the opening of ‘Hemispheres’ grabbed my attention and this turned out to be my second favourite track (after ‘Believe’), and I wonder how such a small guy can sing like Dan does on this track, (but then RJD was only small too wasn’t he!).
‘Under Fire’ again reminds me of Mason Hill but that’s no bad thing either and the guitar solo at the breakdown reminds me of the style of Black Stone Cherry: not bad company to keep! ‘Left Of Me’ is well driven by the guitar riff and bass drum combination another good rock track.
‘Change My Mind’ is another upbeat track that just whips up a vocal and guitar duel throughout. The penultimate track, ‘Wrong Side’, has a real upbeat rapidfire vocal and guitar rhythm at the beginning that just snaps and pops the track along to its breathless outro.
The final track ‘Hurricane’ shows a varied approach with an almost piano/acoustic section at the chorus in the breakdown that really shows the contrast in the track, the underpinning guitar solo is brilliantly well played. This track will go down a storm at the end of a set in any venue.
This is a well crafted album on the whole which just takes the band into mainstream rock and cements their style firmly in their direction of travel.
- ‘Under The Light’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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