Classic Rock - Motor Head (2019-07)

Light Mama sounds like then
you’re probably reading the
wrong magazine. Best of all
could be the slow blues Selfish
World. It’s close enough to ZZ
To p ’ s Blue Jean Blues to get their
lawyers interested, but Billy
Gibbons should be flattered.
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Neil Jeffries

Big Big Train
The Grand Tour PLANE GROOVY
Long-running English proggers
steam off to Europe on
concept holiday.
A quarter of
a century into
a career that
really seems to
have gathered
momentum only over the past
half-decade, Big Big Train leave
English fields behind on The
Grand Tour, venturing to Italy to
celebrate science, art and
literature in the manner of – one
presumes - 18th-century
explorers rather than Jeremy
Clarkson and co.
Musically their course hasn’t
deviated much, although The
Florentine kicks off with some
delightfully jaunty acoustic
guitar before reverting to type,
but everything is so beautifully
constructed that the lack of real
deviation is its own reward.
Perhaps ironically for a band
that does ‘traditional’ prog rock
better than almost anyone since
its 70s heyday, the one thing Big
Big Train lack is the one thing

Genesis were eventually pilloried

for: succinct, singalong choruses.

But this is music written with

ambition and spirit, and in

Voyager they might just have

written their most effective,

beguiling piece yet.

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Fraser Lewry

Richard Hawley

Further BMG

‘Upbeat’ Hawley, but all horses

remain unfazed.

There’s a kind of comfort in

Richard Hawley albums,

sumptuous retro-crooner

records that imbue stories and

landmarks from his beloved

Sheffield with a Golden Age

glamour. It’s the same comfort of

discovering an unspoilt 1950s

radio station at the bottom end

of a Cadillac’s dial, or the gleam

from a vintage Shure 55S

microphone.

So don’t be worried when he

declares his eighth album an

“upbeat” departure. Yes, it opens

with a burst of feedback,

contains the kind of blustery

country rock (Off My Mind, Time

Is) and ominous glam (Alone)

that recall Johnny Marr or

Kasabian and fend off trad rock

cliché with a voodoo glower. Yes,

Is There A Pill is wrought from

grisly guitars, stalking a prom-

night slow dance. But much of

the mid-section is spent down

the bayou with an acoustic

guitar, twangling limpid

shimmers like the title track and

cuckold’s lament Emilina Says.

Gallay Girl brings the required

dose of Americana mythology

• the noir Western tale of
  a disowned Lord’s son grabbing
  his gun and his girl and eloping
  to the New World – and there’s
  plenty of grizzled wisdoms in the
  Albatross-like Not Lonely, drug
  ballad Doors and My Little
  Treasures, a song 12 years in the
  making, about Hawley meeting
  his father’s closest friends at his
  funeral. Sink in.
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  Mark Beaumont

The Rods

Brotherhood Of Metal

STEAMHAMMER/SPV

Eighties cult heroes still

banging heads.

The message in

The Rods’ new

album is

emphatic:

‘Heavy metal

rules!’ Dave ‘Rock’ Feinstein

sings in Everybody’s Rockin’, with

all the conviction of his famous

cousin Ronnie James Dio and his

former bandmate Joey DeMaio

of Manowar.

It’s close to 40 years since this

power trio from upstate New

York hit the UK with their ballsy,

no-frills debut album and a tour

opening for Iron Maiden. But on

the heroically titled Brotherhood

Of Metal – The Rods’ third album

since their reunion in 2008 – the

line-up is the same as it was

back in ’82: Feinstein (guitar,

vocals), Carl Canedy (drums)

and Garry Bordonaro (bass).

And while their music has

changed just a little, more out-

and-out metal, less rock’n’roll, it

still has the burning intensity of

the band’s younger days.

The title track’s piano intro,

with shades of Nigel Tufnell’s

Lick My Love Pump, is merely the

calm before the storm, as The

Rods hammer away relentlessly

through heavy-duty numbers

such as Louder Than Loud and

Tyrant King.

“No ballads,” Canedy says.

“Nothing your mom will be

humming.” He’s not kidding.

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Paul Elliott

The Heavy

Sons BMG

Under Heavy manners.

Since forming in the West

Country in the mid-noughties,

The Heavy’s rock‘n’soul has

conquered festivals and top US

TV shows and sold out their

spring European tour. Switching

labels from Ninja Tune to BMG,

this fifth album could be their

breakthrough, spearheaded by

Kevin Swaby’s impassioned

singing over spirited collisions

between 60s psychedelic soul,

Funkadelic rock and contagious,

Stax-like resonance. The rock

bombast of opener Heavy For

Yo u could be misleading; by

Better As One, the single inspired

by Charlottesville’s racist rally in

2017, The Heavy are

transcending their name, kicking

up a storm on scathing missives

like Fighting For The Same Thing,

Fire and Burn Bright.

The Heavy are a band we

really need right now.

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Kris Needs

Duel

Valley Of Shadows

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS

Devil’s in the details.

Impressively

prolific Texas

stoners Duel

just seem to get

better and

better, with their fourth album in

as many years demonstrating an

ever-growing mastery of psych,

doom and primal proto-metal.

Building impressively on

2017’s Witchbanger, the

precision of Duel’s brutal occult

boogie is immediately apparent

on opener Black Magic Summer,

Red Moon Forming and Tyrant On

The Throne – tight and trippy

powerhouses led firmly from the

front by Tom Frank’s gravelly

roar, his vocal style not dissimilar

to Clutch’s Neil Fallon. Praise

indeed. Frank handles the throat

shredders and more dynamically

complex tunes, like I Feel No Pain

and Strike And Disappear, with no

sweat whatsoever. With not

a duff track on it, this album is

something of an unsettling,

deeply groovy triumph.

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Essi Berelian

Flamingods: a breezy, funky

prog-psych knockabout.

ROUND-UP: PROG By Jo Kendall

Red Bazar

Things As They Appear

WHITE KNIGHT

The fourth album from

Nottingham’s Red Bazar

teems with AOR-driven

neo-prog goodness.

Tiger Moth Tales man/

Camel keyboard player Peter Jones takes

up the mic again (see 2016’s Tales From

The Bookcase), his soulful baritone

matching the rousing melodies of Rocky

Bone Runway and The Parting, featuring

excellent guitar widdle from Andy Wilson.

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Maraton

Meta INDIE

We expect big things

from ‘Norway’s most-

streamed’ new

nu-proggers, who take

a bit of Muse and a lot

of Von Hertzens to make this super-catchy

rock-prog debut. If falsetto high-flying is

your thing, then Fredrik Bergersen Klemp is

for you - and paired with crunchy low-end

synths and stop-start guitars, this record

is a cymbal-smashing, pulse-quickening

first step.

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Steven Taranto

Permamence SELF-RELEASED

And now it’s over to

Sydney, Australia, for

Steven Taranto’s

Permamence, a virtuoso

guitar record that kicks

off sounding like Tubular Bells (Aphoria)

and finishes as some sort of epic tech-

metal Zappa fusion (Quantum Leap).

There’s a lot of this stuff about, but with

Taranto having worked with Plini, I Built

The Sky and more, his symphonic take is

definitely worth a listen.

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Flamingods

Levitation MOSHI MOSHI

While splitting prog

musical atoms with

knotty time signatures,

coming up with obscure

lyrics and spending

many hours getting a bedroom tan as you

diligently master your musical instrument

of choice, it’s also quite nice to make music

that’s a bit of fun now and again.

London-Bahrain band Flamingods enter

their ninth year toiling at the tie-dyed

psychedelic coalface with a fourth album.

And a breezy, funky prog-psych

knockabout it is too, taking in poppy

synths, Middle Eastern melodies and

Asian disco, bolstered by guest

contributions from The Comet Is Coming,

Snapped Ankles and Vanishing Twin.

Astral Plane is an immediate standout,

where the beat is up in a colourful pop-

motorik. But then there’s Peaches’ bongo-

busting raga to light up a receptive

cerebellum for dancing, not to mention

the infectious King Gizzard whoops on

Marigold, Anatolian rockin’ on Koray

(surely named after Turkey’s premier

psychedelic 70s rocker, Erkin) and

a Moogy meditation (with choir) on the

seven-and-a-half minute closing title

track, and loads more to enjoy.

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Dune Sea

Dune Sea ALL GOOD CLEAN

This summer’s feel-good

hit comes from this Oslo

trio, who launch their

debut album with the

not un-QOTSA-inspired

space-rocker Pentobarbital And Ethanol

before hitting a groovy, Nebula-like stride

with added Hawkwind throbs and synths

on Astrodelic Breakdown and the punkier

Morphine. But it’s not only about chugga-

chugga thrills, as intriguing closer Cosmic

Playground shows.

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