Fogg - High Testament, album review

Alliteration is the Only Complexity

Texas trio in tasty testament to times gone by, riding rock riffs like old pros instrumentally, but with a lead singer sounding like he has spent time with the Charlatans [the newer incarnation] - indeed, the vocal is distinctively lo-fi in that naive way which is fashionable, but a little at odds with the potency elsewhere. It really is as straightforward as that, and why should it be any more complex?

Legs Music 4

Trembling Bells - The Sovereign Self, album review

Quite

This is psychedelic folk, reminding – like so much that I like – of a past, though this isn’t Fairport or Pentangle, and with opening track ‘Tween the Womb and the Tomb, is much more akin to Principal Edward’s Magic Theatre, though it segues into its contemporary sound of Florence and the Machine. Second, O, Where is Saint George? is a clever combination of the English with Eastern chant via elements of Quintessence and Incredible String Band. The eclecticism is dynamic. Third Killing Time in London has even more echoes, but it is generically acid folk with singer Lavinia Blackwell reminding most of the many but I can’t recall precisely enough to namecheck [Shocking Blue’s Mariska Veres, I think]. The guitar work and other is Pink Floyd and thus the influences keep merging and running, a rich amalgam of past and present and the band’s collective excellence. By fifth Bells of Burford we are back to Principle Edward’s, though making it as separate as this is not the point, and when the guitar work on this track goes stratospheric we are in a different far-out dimension. Robin Williamson meets The Band throws its curve ball on sixth The Singing Blood, and the delight in this vibrant heterogeneity is quite nice!

Sign Music

Cherry Choke - A Night in the Arms of Venus Leads to a Lifetime on Mercury, album review

Cherry Right on the Top

More retro rock, this time from 2011 and this power trio’s second album, where there is a hard rock edge, but I do love the late 60s distortion and other effects of second The Day She Came to Play which is a tad more subtle than bat-to-face heaviness. This is immediately followed by the garage velocity of third Winchester Geese, so be prepared for the sharp shifts. Dan Lockton on drums pounds this one out with great venom. Fourth Domino is a more psychedelic groove, and the guitar of Mat Bethancourt wah-wahs aptly above another fast-paced foundation: nine minutes of quite raw energy as the guitar work gets an extended freak-out, echoes of The Who in the song’s closing rhythms. Fifth Evol continues the thundering – though with another shift in its punctuating balladic breaks from vocalist Mat – and Gregg Hunt’s bass is a rampant gem on this track. For consummate psychedelia, seventh Silver Crossed My Mind is exquisite, and by this stage you know you are listening to an album that has depths of significance, and the ‘retro’ of its sound is far more creative and genuine than that tag can imply. When closer Splinters evokes Jefferson Airplane you know for certain these guys have done their aural homework, and I give the whole an A*.

Tree Music 7

Datura4 - Demon Blues, album review

An Open Book

Australian fuzzed-up bluesrock band telling their story in the latest book off the generic shelf of Rock's Resurgent Reminiscing Section. There is a fine chapter as example in third Another Planet, sounding like Norman Greenbaum's Spirits in the Sky meets the Beach Boys, the anxiety of influence both repressed and resurgent - that wonderful paradox - in the simplicity of being. Too heavy? The music isn't, but the fuzz does a lot of the talking in a pleasingly chugging way. At times it is more Jesus Jones than Canned Heat, then you turn the page to fifth Hoonswine and its driving riff and we are reading about the blues. Title track Demon Blues reminds that this is the central plot, a largely instrumental narrative with an accompanying monologue that yells Oh Yeah. Written with plenty of fine guitar penmanship.

Steering Wheel Music

Tore Johansen - Earth Stills, album review

Not Bullshit But Full of Still

Inspired by the artwork of Norwegian Jannik Abel, this is a calming jazz set by trumpeter Tore Johansen, with the support of Andy Sheppard, Bugge Wesseltoft, Arild Andersen and Gard Nilssen. Much is quite languid musical portraiture, and Sheppard provides mirroring and chit-chat accompaniment on his sax. The ten minutes of Earth Stills III is quite sublime. There is also a lovely cover of Nature Boy.

Earth Stills VI - Jannik Abel

I didn’t know Abel until coming across this album, but a little research shows that he also works in words, and I rather like the Concrete Poetry of Bullshit where there is a visual crescendo of this.