Atlantis - Rock Heavies, album review

Rumpf Rock Funk

This is a shortish compilation album of the German band's work, but is most notable for the superb vocal of Inga Rumpf who had previously been the most notable member of another fine band Frumpy.

Her singing is in the gritty, gutsy female vein, and she is one of the best. Most of the tracks on this compilation are actually a rock funk, though her work is often described as prog rock, and opener on this collection Get on Board [the title of the band's 1975 album] has a west coast sound to it. Funkier numbers here are Brother and Mr Bigshot, whilst Son of a Bitch's Son returns to more of that west coast rock. The 7+ minutes of Days of Giving combines the two, with heavy organ pushing to rock, and the guitar and bass rhythms reminding occasionally of a 70s blaxploitation score. Prog rock does get a cameo in the excellent The Captain and the Ship before the album closes on a straight rock blues Rock 'n' Roll Preacher.

Feet Only Music

Rival Sons - Great Western Valkyrie [Tour Edition], album review

RS do CCR's LAICSTL and HP's BC, some recorded at JJS, OK?

My reviews of Rival Sons, including this album minus the tour edition addition, can be found here, so this is a quick reminder of the band's excellence and a comment on that extra disc: all six further tracks are great, 2 recorded at the initial Valkyrie sessions and 3 at Norway's Juke Joint Studios.

Opener Too Much Love is more signature rock, predominate slide guitar and Jay Buchanan's superb vocal - always; My Nature is a powerful ballad; Open My Eyes [live at JJS] has great acoustic slide; the first big gem is the cover of CCR's Long As I Can See the Light [JJS], again an acoustic version; penultimate is Where I've Been [JJS] continuing with the acoustic slide and JB's emotive singing, and closer Black Coffee is a wonderful cover of the Ike and Tina Turner song made famous by Humble Pie - Buchanan is no Steve Marriott clone [the latter too brilliantly unique for that] but if anyone could give this a worthy homage in performance, Rival Sons certainly succeed, and as further reverence to HP and SM, the song has female backing singers too - a musical development Marriott made for the Humble Pie album Eat It.

JPT Scare Band - Acid Acetate Excursion, album review

This Is JPT

Recorded on reel-to-reel in a basement between 1973-76 [I believe], initially released in 1994, and now getting a vinyl re-release, this is freak-out, 'proto-metal' - not my tag - music that is for fans of quite raw, jamming wah-wah and fuzzed guitar.

The opener Sleeping Sickness is the only song of the four with vocals by Jerry Swope, and his guitar work dominates with occasional echoes of Hendrix but by and large just heaviness, and much of this quick. The other two in this power trio are drummer Jeff Littrell and bassist Paul Grigsby.

You can tell it's basement jam music and spaced out on its own spontaneity, but that is what makes it so authentic. If you like guitar and feedback and skill, this is it. This.

Football Music

Billy Talbot Band (feat. Ryan Holzer & The Jerdes with Liza Blue) - Dakota, album review

Fragile Feelings Show

Recorded, we are told, at a converted turn-of-the-century schoolhouse at his home in South Dakota during the blizzards of 2014, founding member of Crazy Horse Billy Talbot, and friends, have recorded a truly authentic slice of something simple and sweet here – you can imagine the apt tags that could be applied – and it never sounds less than genuinely felt as storytelling and performance.

Billy’s vocal is a slightly grizzled and fragile but often beautiful stillpoint throughout all of the tracks, an emotive highlight being Wild Honey where the slowness of the drum beat, banjo pluck, piano pulses, unbelievably plaintive fiddle and vulnerable vocal combine with the most gorgeous chorus to present nearly six minutes of bliss.

Other gentle gems in this vein are the Young-esque Touching – Talbot’s voice on the edge of breaking throughout; the fiddle/violin rich with communal renditions in the lovely When I Awake, and the sustained soothings of Feelings Show. 

Bridge Music 7

Robert J. Hunter - Before the Dawn, album review

Spunky Second

Robert J Hunter’s follow-up to the excellent debut Sounds for the Weary, reviewed here, begins superbly with an old-school rock riff to deliver the blues in They Think That I’m Fine, which is then followed by another chugging, descending blues riff in Rumour Mill, the vocal distanced by effects but unmistakingly Hunter’s signature husky growl, and some fine guitar solo work.

It’s third Preacher that showcases the full force of the singing, a vocal grit that is greased in blues-oil. Fourth Three Shake Fold returns to a riff-driven number and these gustsy rock blues, occasional organ swirls in the background, are the backbone of this spunky second.

Butt Music 6