Car Music 26

Joy - Ride Along!

Retro Joy

San Diego trio Joy's second release is a psychedelic trip back to now in the way these very good exponents of powerrock from long ago can regenerate today.

Third Evil Woman is a timewarped track to exemplify, both in title and freaked guitar work. I like opener I've Been Down with its 2 minutes and 42 seconds of loudness - slide guitar and what sounds like great organswirl blasts. Riffage gets a bluecheerish outing on fourth Going Down Slow, power in the thundering bass and drums; more psychedelia in the guitar wah-wah jam. Further great guitar work is on fifth Certified Blues. The longest track is closer Gypsy Mother's Son at 6 and 30 seconds, and this freaks out wonderfully, guitar and bass dancing together with pace.

The vocal is always in a distance, sometimes with distortion, sometimes bolstered by tight harmony, and that's fine enough, but if there was an aspect I'd like to see different it is here. Needs a gutsy frontsinger. That said, there is plenty of playing to fully engage anyone's heavy necessity.

Space Music 11

Fernando Viciconte - back and current catalogue available

Highly Recommended

I have just bought and downloaded 5 albums that I didn't have, mostly Fernando's back catalogue. I have reviewed his most recent and previous that I have here: he is a singer-songwriter as passionate and self-effacing about his music and ideas as you'll ever find, much loved by the music community, and a wonderful artist to see live. His music is thoughtful, dark, political, introspective, raging and always honest about the emotions, thoughts and ideas, as well as musically superb. There is often a psychedelic aura to the folk core, but there is also punk and pop, as explored in my reviews.

click to read

The package deal advertised on Fernando's Facebook page and/or when you visit Domingo Records  is excellent value for digital downloads.

The O'Jays - Live From Daryl's House 2016

Daryl's Got So Much Soul He Should Go For An Afro...

As one of the O'Jays says and as this wonderful session demonstrates. I've been watching and listening to quite a few previous Live from Daryl's House recordings, and this recent one with the O'Jays is simply brilliant. Highly recommended. I have picked it up as an audio bootleg from out there somewhere, but of course it can be watched as a full 49 minutes video on YouTube.

Listened tonight as I inputted exam grade marks on the computer: soul and funk assessment!

Wild Dog Music

Rival Sons - Hollow Bones, album review

Bones Full of Rock

This fifth album by Southern California band Rival Sons is informed most by the superlative rock vocal of Jay Buchanan and the jagged guitar riffs of Scott Holiday, consummate old-school rock with occasional and signature soaring vocal choruses as well as more contemporary effects as on opener Hollow Bones Pt 1 where the electronic scratches scorch across the ending, competing with the Buchanan yell. And riffs are rife as on second Tied Up, a creepy edge included. Buchanan’s chops are generally chomping on rock’s gristle, for example sequel Hollow Bones Pt 2, though it gets heightened emotive injections in sixth Fade Out, and in the genuinely exquisite closing ballad All That I Want, reminding a little of Josh T Pearson in the songwriting.

Lips Music 13

Dantalian's Chariot [Zoot Money] - The Madman Running Through The Fields - 1967

Jettisoning R&B and jazz for psychedelia in order to appeal to an emerging audience keen on stoned-out sounds, Zoot formed Dantalian's Chariot with Andy Somers [later Summers] later of Police. This single is pretty far-out.

Ty Curtis - Blame Me, album review

Pop-Blues? Deal With It!

Here at SDAA Ty Curtis is a blues/soul/rock guitarist and singer-songwriter who has always appealed and pleased. A previous review and video clips can be found here in support of this, and the other albums I listen to all confirm the talent. This latest digital release is a fine contribution to his sustained output, a maturing perhaps in the vocal.

In my review of Water Under the Bridge I did refer to his ‘pop-blues’ sound and I recall a fan taking umbrage with the term on Curtis’ Facebook site where the review was posted, pleasingly. Always delighted for someone to respond, even if having the ‘ump, but I still think the ‘melodic’ element to his rockblues oeuvre is Curtis’ great strength. The opening three tracks on this latest are generic guitar rock [and pumped-up organ on second, title track Blame Me] and this is delivered with skill and punch. Good stuff, as ever.

To this listener, it is in the sweet rhythmic guitar sequences that Curtis stamps his authority. Fourth I Can Say is an upbeat soulful song that builds melodically around its funky rhythms, solo stabs enlivening.  Next Heaven Save Me is a blues ballad that exudes its self-reflection with honest-sounding emotion – the organ swirls wrapping it in lamentation – and the guitar solos are poignant in their restraint. This is a longing, late-night narrative. Sixth Shake It Up continues the more melodic groove, some tight vocal harmonising in the chorus, and these three are a core for the sound I personally prefer – not to in any way negate the power of the rest. As with all good music, listening and response is as much about the mood in the hearing as that in the musician’s intention and creation: because the desire and engagement is there, from both merging parts.

There’s a reggae surge in seventh Urge and Temptation, and then with ninth Who Are You we are returned to another super-sweet ballad, vocal harmonies here with a West Coast softness. The mellowed guitar and organ, with Curtis’ vocal at its emotive best, combine to layer this with more of that honest-sounding feeling. Closer Never Get My Love has a simple but sweet-again descending chord sequence before the off-beat rhythm pulses above this, the pace quickened at the album’s end, suitably, with Carmelo Torres’ percussive riff adding extra quality.

This fine album can be downloaded here.