Angela Perley isn’t someone who wears her influences lightly; from sixties guitar rock through seventies country rock (Fleetwood Mac perhaps) to jangly eighties bands like The Bangles, The Go Gos and Katrina & The Waves. There’s also a touch of country/Americana thrown in, particularly on the penultimate song, ‘Holding On’, with its over-driven slide guitar and the pedal steel that adds just a tinge of blue to the entire album. Apart from the album’s final song, the solo piece ‘Wreck Me’, the songs are all fairly big productions with guitars facing off against each other, keys adding different textures and, of course, the sad machine pitching in with plaintive fills. To get the best from ‘Turn Me Loose’, you probably need to listen to it on the freeway (which sounds cool in a way that motorway never will) with the electric guitars playin’ way up loud.

From the opening song, ‘Plug Me In’, which channels the country rock of Eagles’ ‘Take It Easy’, adds a middle finger attitude and the urge to be moving which runs through the whole album with references to cars, planes, motorcycles, taxis, planes and even roller skates. Angela Perley’s desperate to be on the move; she needs to go somewhere, anywhere. Maybe it’s the inevitable reaction to a couple of years of movement restrictions after a long career as a touring musician – it’s certainly a theme that permeates the album.

‘Ripple’ is where Seventies glam-rock meets Lynyrd Skynyrd/Allman Brothers boogie; the riff is simple and the song’s driven along by powerhouse drumming as Angela sings about some of the things she wants to escape (including the vampires of the music business). Her influences are very clear musically and lyrically on the Sixties-inspired flower power-evoking ‘Near You’ with the reference to a “mellow fellow” and an almost English intonation in the lead vocal that harks back to the Sixties British invasion era.

‘Turn Me Loose’ is a collection of ten diverse songs pulled together by the combination of clean and over-driven guitars, Angela Perley’s musical influences and an itch to get out there and experience life again. You should listen to it on Route 66 in the summer, but you might have to make do with the M6 in spring. Either way, it’s going to sound great.

‘Turn Me Loose’ is available now from www.angelaperley.com.

Have a listen to the foot-stomping ‘Ripple’ here:

Two years after their debut ‘Just Beyond the Shine’, Peach & Quiet are back with another bunch of great songs aided and abetted by producer and guitarist extraordinaire Steve Dawson. The album continues where the debut left off with some gorgeous Americana/country rock/blues stylings with a few influences creeping in from the background of the duo Jonny Miller and Heather Reed. Our review of their debut referenced the usual Laurel Canyon influences but ‘Beautiful Thing’ pulls in some slightly rockier influences like seventies Fleetwood Mac (or particularly Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks) and a lot of that’s down to Steve Dawson’s production and playing with layers of guitars from resonators through electrics to pedal steel.

The gentle title track sets the tone for the album; its country feel with those guitar layers, lovely harmonies and Jonny Miller’s slightly raspy vocal are things that you hear in varying degrees throughout the album. As an added bonus (for me, anyway), the song opens with one of my favourite chord progressions, falling from the tonic to the subdominant. Want to know why I like this progression? It features in two of my favourite songs, ‘These Days’ by Jackson Browne and Graham Parker’s ’Watch the Moon Come Down’. And honestly, speaking as a mediocre guitarist, it’s easy to play and sounds good.

With a title ‘Horse and Saddle’ you’d be expecting a country arrangement; that would be too predictable. Jonny’s dad is a reggae DJ and he was brought up around reggae musicians, so the influence was always going to come out somewhere. Heather’s dad was a Hammond player and Hammond’s very much in evidence on the slow blues of ‘This Time’, the rock vibe of ‘Behind the Sun’ with a nod in the direction of Crazy Horse and ‘Pockets Empty’, the story of a relationship with a charismatic psychopath.

At a time when temperatures are heading below zero again, ‘Beautiful Thing’ brings a welcome splash of California sunshine with its infectious melodies, exquisite harmonies and perfect arrangements, balancing multiple guitar parts with piano and Hammond to create perfect settings for Jonny and Heather’s solo and duet vocals. Summer feels a long way away at the moment, but this album brings it a bit closer.

‘Beautiful Thing’ is released on Peach & Quiet Music (P&QCD002) on 20th January 2023.

Here’s a live video of ‘This Time’:

It’s time for the third Danberrys (Dorothy Daniel and Ben DeBerry) album, “Shine”. The Nashville duo has taken four years over this piece and it’s a marked departure from their more acoustic Americana sound. Just a quick look at the album credits tells you, in addition to the usual guitar, mandolin and even pump organ, there’s another palette of sounds created by the addition of trombone, tuba, vibes, drums and percussion, the last three contributed by co-producer Marco Giovino. The innovative way percussion is used throughout the album is a clear indication of the involvement of drummer on the production team. The instrument tally on the album is impressive, but they’re used sparingly in a minimal and stark production. And let’s not forget the superb vocals, harmonies and counterpoint.

The album’s opener “Shine” sets the tone, building from a sparse primal rhythm to a brooding, supernatural mantra. The message is that we have to continue to shine a light to penetrate the darkness that surrounds us. There’s a melancholy thread that runs through the album although the message is ultimately one of hope; from “Shine” and the simple, folky “Love Conquers War” which references the protest movement and hammers the message home with the final line, ‘We shall overcome’, and the uplifting exhortation to self-belief of the Bo-Diddley-inflected “The Mountain”. The variety of the arrangements means that there aren’t too many reference points, although “Undertow” does hint at Fleetwood Mac.

The lyrics are interesting; they’re very subtle and they’re more about pointing you in a certain direction and allowing you to make your own interpretation. Although there are repeated references to darkness and dying, the album ultimately feels like a positive experience.

“Shine” is a compelling and haunting set of songs with innovative arrangements which holds your attention throughout with its stark intensity.

And here’s a bit of trivia for you. The person playing guitar, trombone and tuba is Neal Pawley, trombone player with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and Southside’s Americana project, The Poor Fools.

“Shine” is released in the UK on Friday May 8th on Singular Records.

 

 

CPD TitleOK, just hold that front page for a minute, I’ve got a scoop here. There’s more than one band in Croydon attracting attention and I want to be the first to say I’ve discovered the Croydon Scene, so just remember where you heard it. We reviewed the Yeti Love single a few weeks ago and now we’ve got another Croydon band, CoffeePot Drive, releasing their first single “Hey Suzy”, which you can hear on the link above. The band’s sound harks back to a time in the late sixties and early seventies when blues, funk and soul regularly crossed over, creating interesting hybrids with funky guitar riffs, Hammond B3s and soulful vocals.

The members of CoffeePot Drive have worked in various line-ups on the live circuit in the past and the quality of the playing shines through, particularly in the guitar interplay; it could easily be early Fleetwood Mac or The Black Crowes, but there’s a very special ingredient. The voice of Lady Oracle softens the hard edges of the guitars, supplies layered backing vocals and cuts through at the high end of the frequency range. There’s a nice use of dynamics as well, with the breakdown at the two-thirds mark where everything drops out except cymbals and guitar arpeggios before building back up through a couple of choruses to a guitar and vocal coda.

As a lead track for the album, it works well; it grabs the interest with the guitar and vocal interplay and leaves you wanting to hear a bit more. Job done, I think.

“Hey Suzy” is released on August 17, with the album “Edge of Town” following on August 31.

 

LZ titleSo there we were in Macclesfield having arrived by boat and having looked around the local gigs and jigs we saw that Lucy Zirins was due to play The Wharf Inn and with it being but a few strides from the canal, it all seemed like a sensible thing to do. Lucy Zirins comes well backed; a lot of specialist radio airplay especially on community stations and Radio 6, a well – received first album in “Chasing Clocks” and a gig schedule including some of the most prestigious blues festivals this year, not to mention a string of Award nominations from the British Blues establishment and you have a ‘what’s not to like?’ cocktail which deserves to be sampled at the very least.

The Wharf Inn is a very independent-looking boozer with a natty line in whacky beers like smoked stout (no kidding!) and a keg beer called Syrup and Figs. They also have reputation locally for decent live music nights. So, nice intimate little venue to hear Lucy Zee go through her paces.

About 9PM and she starts her set to the usual Saturday night pub mix of folks who have come in to see The Turn and folks who have come in to drink and socialise and rather see The Turn as a distraction at best and an annoyance at worst. Not an easy balance keeping everybody happy in that situation, but she did so with the easy grace and charm of someone who has been treading the boards for a while now and has been doing so rather successfully.

She launches into “Ready to Fall” from “Chasing Clocks” and plays an acoustic throughout the first of two sets; it’s pleasant enough, nice voice, nice tune, decent enough lyrics, well played. She then goes into a range of songs taken largely, but by no means exclusively, from the album and each song is politely if hardly ecstatically received by the audience, which she works quite adeptly, recognising and mentioning by name a couple of guys who went to a recent festival, a number of local folks she knows, and a local radio DJ who did an early session with her. Her inter-song raps have a homely Lisa Stansfieldesque quality about them and we are shortly invited to enjoy a refreshing beverage whilst she takes a break.

When she returns she has dropped the acoustic for a blingy dobro which she plays extremely well. Stand-out songs in the set are “Home”, a bit of a ‘road’ song, and “The Last One”. But I find myself becoming increasingly fidgety, and it isn’t just the distance from the gents making me feel uncomfortable. For I honestly thought I was coming out to hear the blues tonight – and I don’t hear ‘em. I hear a very competent and quite likeable singer / songwriter and a very adept musician. Occasionally I hear a country singer and player. True, we get a bit nearer blues-sounding stuff once the dobro becomes the weapon of choice and sure enough there are a few classic covers in the second part of her set including a fun singalong version of ‘Little Red Rooster’ and an encore of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop’ but all told, I seemed to be watching an artist confronted by the same problem I’ve seen loads of talented people unhorsed by over the years.

I don’t think she’s a blues singer, as such. I really don’t. But the thing is, the flag of convenience known generally as the blues means that if you hang your hat on that particular peg, to mangle metaphors horribly, They Know What To Do With You. You get to play blues festivals, you get to do gigs like these and the broad church of ‘blues’ fans will give it a go, record / production companies understand what to do you with you; there’s a process. If you’re singer / songwriter, no fixed artistic abode, you sort of drift around trying to connect with an audience, which, well, isn’t all that big and lacks ‘focus’. As I say I’ve seen many musicians over the years trying to ‘shoehorn’ themselves into ‘the blues’ and it becomes painful to watch.

So if you like a female singer songwriter with some good original songs, but as yet no out-and-out killers, with a good voice and is a very good musician, you could do a lot worse than a night out with Lucy Zirins.

But if you’re looking for a night on the Blues, I’d look elsewhere.

Days are GoneHaim are in a minority of artists who also form part of the majority where influences from chart music over the last thirty years can be heard clod-hopping all over their work but who are also pushing forward musically, and sound strikingly different from their current, retro-obsessed contemporaries. The three twenty-something sisters from LA write their own material and play their instruments, they aren’t an electronic act and neither do they aspire to be urban makeover superstars. But there are some fascinating deep and dark synths here and an R’n’B spirit is shadowing almost every song to the point where it does, albeit briefly, finally jump into the driving seat. “Tango in The Night”-era Fleetwood Mac, Prince, Sheryl Crow, The Police and eighties soft rock are the most dominant and easily-spotted influences for the Haim sisters debut though. Time and again you’ll hear these mentioned in reference to the group but importantly at the core of “Days Are Gone”, is a sound that is all theirs.

The first third of the album is home to all four heavily-promoted singles and with the possible exception of the worryingly Shania Twain tendencies of the overly-perky “The Wire” (not forgetting the Eagles “Heartache Tonight” drum intro – Ed), all still sound spring fresh, funky and with plenty of space for instruments and vocals to stretch out and sparkle. “If I Could Change your Mind” has a fidgety, skipping melody line which brings to mind freestyle electro pop from eighties artists like Cover Girls and Lisa Lisa, and the title track, a surprising co-write with UK new-house artist Jessie Ware, has plenty of tension and bustles along with an urgent agenda and rhythm.

It’s on the futuristic R’n’B of the oddly titled “My Song 5” where the band really surprise. If this were the lead single from Beyonce’s near-mythical, possibly forthcoming album or even more excitingly, another attempt at a comeback from Missy Elliott then either would be rightly lauded. Three seconds of dirgy, descending buzz bass and then massive slow pounding drums introduce vocals which mimic Wendy and Lisa doing their Purple Rain residence; dead eyed and dangerous, pitch black promising ‘honey I’m not your honey pie’. A dizzy and delirious middle eight where tight angelic harmonies flip forward and then just disappear and it’s one of the one of the most exciting and weird four minutes you’ll have experienced since the first time you heard “Get Ur Freak On”.

Continuing with the genuinely thrilling and experimental final third of “Days Are Gone” where the sound that we’d already heard from the band is both intensified and stripped away, “Go Slow” is a gorgeous and gently skulking “True Colours” but with all of the sonic fuzz wiped away. “Let Me Go” is the angriest sounding moment here, building from the sixties girl group chants in the dark into a tribal thud and clanking, dubby outro and “Running If you Call my Name” closes the album in a traditional way as a down-tempo mass of drums, guitars and those beautiful harmonies.

“Days Are Gone”, maybe more than anything else, is very welcome at this point in pop culture. Pop music is more female-driven and dominated than ever before; Gaga is eaten by Lana is eaten by Taylor is eaten by Miley. It happens so quickly and all have their place and merit but none sound like Haim. Image, although clearly very much considered, seems less of an issue to the group than the music itself, you can listen to the songs here and you don’t necessarily feel hijacked by a carefully constructed persona and brand as you may do when listening to “Born This Way” or “Video Games” say. This is a charismatic and superior release, real musical talent and love of performing that doesn’t sound cynical or short-sighted. Probably most satisfying of all, you can almost guarantee that this really is only the beginning for Haim and the best is still to come.

Out now.