Whether you listen to one of their albums or you go to see Track Dogs live, there’s one thing you can guarantee; it won’t be predictable. The mix of musical influences brought to the band by Garrett Wall, Robbie K Jones, Howard Brown and Dave Mooney, in addition to the influences of their adopted hometown of Madrid, ensures that you won’t know what’s coming next. The title ‘Blind Summits & Hidden Dips’ sums it up perfectly as a metaphor for life in general and the album in particular. You can make the journey from Laurel Canyon to twelve-bar blues (with a twist) from one song to the next.

The rapid changes of direction and style flow naturally from a band with such a range of vocal and instrumental skills and diverse influences as the album’s first three songs demonstrate. The opener, ‘The Way of Things’, has a very Latin feel with trumpets that edge over into Gibson Brothers territory and even a Spanish vocal. It’s followed by ‘Cover Your Tracks’ which channels the seventies West Coast vibe with acoustic guitar and vibes and the customary smooth harmonies. The album’s third song, the slightly bawdy ‘Be Your Silver Bullet’, opens with Garrett Wall intoning the roll-call from the 1967 children’s series Trumpton before breaking in to a banjo and horns-driven I-IV-V blues progression. In true Track Dogs style, it’s anything but standard; there’s a guest appearance from sax legend Lou Marini and the song builds to a New Orleans jazz ending. As ever the harmonies are superb.

The album features a couple of covers, a fairly straightforward rendition of Lester Flatt’s ‘Sleep With One Eye Open’ and a Latin take on a song written by an American (Stevie Nicks) about a Welsh witch, with a guest vocal from Spanish singer Lu Garnet. ‘Rhiannon’ is very different from the Fleetwood Mac original with its ukulele, bass trumpet and vibes arrangement. To emphasise the album’s unpredictability, ‘Strange Days’ is a positive message about coming out of lockdown set against a reggae backbeat while ‘Disaster at Sea’ is a spoof sea shanty with a whimsical lyrical twist at the end. ‘Blind Summits & Hidden Dips’ is packed with inventiveness and surprises around every hairpin bend; you won’t get bored with this anytime soon.

‘Blind Summits & Hidden Dips’ is released on Friday October 6th in the UK on Mondegreen Records (MGR1023).

Here’s the video for ‘Cover Your Tracks’:

The best way to enjoy the full Track Dogs experience is to see them live so here’s a link to their upcoming UK tour dates.

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 20^th January 2023.

Here’s a live video of ‘This Time’:

It’s about a year since we first picked up on Mollie Marriot, when she popped up doing backing vocals (with Izzy Chase-Phillmore) for Jim Stapley on his debut album and at a London gig last year. It was obvious to anyone who didn’t have tin ears that she had an outstanding voice. What we didn’t know at the time, but discovered after a few gigs, was that she also has at least an album’s worth of great songs which she’s worked on with a bunch of co-writers that includes Jim Stapley, Sam Tanner of Brother Strut and Judie Tzuke. Lyrically, it’s not always comfortable because it deals with some troubled times in Mollie’s life, but the arrangements and performances create positive feelings from negative experiences. And she’s put a phenomenal live band together as well.

“A Million Miles” is her third solo single (following “Ship of Fools” and “Transformer”) and it might just be the one to make the breakthrough, ahead of her debut album “The Truth is a Wolf” which is due for release in early 2016. The song opens with Johnson-Jay’s shimmering guitar weaving in and out of Sam Tanner’s trickling keyboards evoking a seventies Californian drivetime feel before Mollie’s voice comes in, gently at first, with just a suggestion of Stevie Nicks and the story of an unravelling relationship. As the instrumental intensity builds, the vocal goes up through the gears from pure and clear to powerful and emotional, building to a climax before fading to a gentle finish. It’s a song that takes you on an emotional journey, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Mollie Marriott’s made a lot of great decisions in the last couple of years; she’s surrounded herself with superb musicians and collaborators who happen to be lovely people, and she’s created a very tight little family that just happens to be a musical powerhouse. If anyone can achieve popular success while pursuing their own artistic vision in today’s music business, my money’s on Mollie.

“A Million Miles” is out on MITA Records on October 23^rd.

 

 

This album’s been around for a few months but it slipped under the MusicRiot radar until we heard about The Kennedys touring to support it in the UK, so I guess that justifies telling you all about it a little late.  This is the twelfth album the husband and wife team, Pete and Maura Kennedy, have released as The Kennedys, although they have both also been involved with various side projects.  The Kennedys are one of those “well-kept secret” bands that have devoted fans but, for some reason, have never quite become massively successful.

“Closer than You Know” is an interesting piece of work.  Just for once I agree with a statement from a press release; this is “pop for grown-ups” and, more importantly, it’s music for people who really care about music.  There isn’t any filler on this album; all of the songs are good and, in my opinion, at least a couple are great.  It’s difficult to define their style, but if you take folk-rock as your starting point, add a bit of Celtic seasoning and throw in 60s UK pop and The Byrds, you won’t be far off the mark.

The opening song “Winter” sets the scene for the album with Pete’s finger-picked guitar backing  Maura’s breathy, multi-tracked, vocals before moving into the country-tinged “Rhyme and Reason”, followed by the story of a second generation illegal immigrant “Marina Dream”, which has a Celtic folk feel  and a rhythm that evokes perfectly the flight and pursuit experienced by the girl at the centre of the song.

The middle section of the album moves across a variety of styles instrumentally and vocally featuring laconic Richard Hawley style-guitar, discordant synthesised strings and classical nylon-strung guitar arrangements.  I’m not dismissing these songs by any means, because they’re all good but, for me, after a couple of listens, the album builds up to one focal point.

From the opening sus4 chords of “Big Star Song” I was hooked.  The song is a celebration of Alex Chilton’s work and a lament for his passing;  it’s a perfect marriage of words and music which evokes an earlier era while sounding completely contemporary.  Like many great songs, this has several layers and, lyrically, it’s also about losing something or someone other than Alex Chilton.  I don’t know what that something else is and I suspect it’s so personal that I don’t really want to know.  Whichever way you look at it, this is a great song.

“Big Star Song” is followed by a U2 cover, “Wild Honey” , “Happy Again” (which has more than a hint of Rosanne Cash vocally) and “Winter Lies”, which completes the cycle.  I would have reviewed this as a good album without “Big Star Song”, but with that song, it’s a very good album indeed.  You can hear loads of influences at work here (you can probably add Stevie Nicks and maybe Emmylou Harris to the ones I’ve already listed), but this is fresh and original. 

My only general criticism is that the album feels slightly over-produced at times.  This may be a reaction to working as a duo because it must be natural at times to over-compensate by throwing too much at the production and adding another extra guitar part or vocal harmony. It’s a minor criticism and I’m really looking forward to hearing the live interpretations of the songs later this week.

“Closer than You Know” is out now (Catalogue No. TK1208), distributed by Proper Music Distribution.