Stacie Collins - Roll the Dice, album review

1-in-36 Every Time

This is country rock at its country best: ruled by rock’s core. I’ll admit that line complicates an otherwise totally uncomplicated sound and album, but ‘it does what it says on the tin’ is too much the cliché these days, as nail on the head as it is.

OK. Enough playing.

This is a rock-solid album with Stacie Collins in fine country-rock vocal throughout on generic-stonkin’ tracks, almost all enhanced by her great harp playing [and I say ‘almost’ only because she doesn’t always play the harp on every track, as on Gonna Fly].

Opener Lost and Found does, however, begin with great blowin’, and the country-leaning rock sets a rousing template for the whole album. There is fine harp’n’guitar dueting here too. Second King of Rock is a riff-chugger with more superb interplay, and I like the vocal chorus providing pop irony to the song’s grit.

Fourth It’s Over slows it done a bit, and the blues tone showcases Collins’ emotive vocal delivery, the song ending on sweet harmonies and guitar. This is an excellent number. There’s Tex-Mex on fifth Heart on My Sleeve adding to the album’s engaging variety. Seventh Can’t Do Without You begins with a harp cry that sets up the brilliant brooding to follow. Next Keep Rollin’ showcases again Collins’ powerful vocal, the acoustic country-folk underpinned with blues harp.

Penultimate track Later Than You Think is more atmospheric blues, and closer Blood Moon is a sensual extension of that emotive blueprint, the song rising along caustic guitar, sweet harmonies and harp-wails to a crescendo of sensational sound.

Snake-eyes rolled every time. A superb album.