‘Sun Racket’ is the brand new album from legendary Boston trio Throwing Muses, consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. The follow up to 2013’s ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristen Hersh’s well-thumbed notebook of storylines.
A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that’s at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos. When Throwing Muses wrote their last album, they were shattered. Pieces were coming and going, elements repeating and charging the whole. “It sounded beautiful jumping around like that”. Two-minute songs reappearing as twisted instrumentals or another song’s bridge.
They mimicked the effect live which kept them on their toes. Whatever was happening was already over in other words. ‘Sun Racket’ is the opposite. It refused to do anything but sit still. It says, “sit here and deal”.
“All it asked of us was to comingle two completely disparate sonic vocabularies: one heavy noise, the other delicate music box. Turns out we didn’t have to do much. Sun Racket knew what it was doing and pushed us aside, which is always best. After thirty years of playing together, we trust each other implicitly but we trust the music more” – Kristin Hersh
New album from the legendary Boston trio consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. Sun Racket is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristen Hersh’s well-thumbed notebook of storylines. A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that’s at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos.
This week John Jeffrey, the drummer for Moon Duo, announced his debut solo album, “Passage”, and shared its first single, the eight-minute long instrumental “Leaving Franklin.”Passage is due out October 30th via Jean Sandwich (a Portland-based label).
“Passage” consists of four lengthy jazz-influenced instrumental songs and a press release says Jeffrey was inspired by Alice Coltrane and Canadian painter Takao Tanabe. Recorded in a series of sessions at The Hive, with engineer Colin Stewart, Jeffrey drew inspiration from the jazz principles of spontaneity, dynamism, progression, and improvisation, the singular spirituality of Alice Coltrane and the mist-veiled landscapes of Canadian painter Takao Tanabe. He approached each session as an experiment in not only improvisation but also a kind of anti-composition in which he sought to remove ego from the creative process and to reimagine the self as a channel for natural processes, rendered through music. Playing to the rhythms of something unseen – a hidden partner that made itself known only in the moment of contact – Jeffrey sought to capture rather than design.
The four shimmering instrumentals that compromise the album are like a landscape unto themselves. At once grounding and expansive, molecular and infinite, they defy easy categorization. There are no linear surfaces, only elemental processes that curve and weave, disappear and reappear; a detailed interplay of atmospheric synths and meditative rhythm evokes the motion of water, the momentary ray of light through tall trees. Like a sonic rendering of one of Tanabe’s distant shorelines, there is both beauty and mystery here – a quality just out of reach, that rewards close attention but does not pursue it.
“I didn’t want to have a structure in place, in order to be guided in a specific direction,” says Jeffrey in a press release. “Everything was developed around simple rhythmic patterns.”
The late Hal Wilner’s final work is an all-star tribute to Marc Bolan and T. Rex, including Nick Cave, U2, Elton John, Todd Rundgren, Joan Jett and two Lennon brothers. It’s a mixed bag, but fitting tribute to a genius. Tribute albums always flatter to deceive. Especially when you love the tributee. There’s the initial excitement at seeing all those big names tackling your favourite songs. Then there’s the fascination of seeing edgy artists bring their own sensibilities to the music you love. And, at worst, the risk of heartbreaking disappointment when you hear a song you love being murdered.
Marc Bolan was my idol from 1970-75. I was his perfect demographic: discovering pop music for the first time as it emerged from the Beatles era, all satin and tat, glitter and make-up, lipstick and platform boots. And that was just the boys. Bolan was the first, and don’t let anyone try and tell you any different. He rode along in 1970 on his white swan, hinting at what was to come, more of a cygnet than a fully fledged water bird. Then, at the beginning of 1971 he emerged, fully feathered and face painted in his bright new plumage, with Hot Love. And that was that. Glam was born.
Bolan was not just a phenomenon. No one sounded like T.Rex. No one sang like Marc. No one looked like Marc, without a care; no square with his corkscrew hair. So how do you celebrate such an idiosyncratic performer 50 years on from his heyday (and 43 years on from his tragically early death, in that car crash)?
If you’re Hal Wilner, the American producer who specialises in lavish tribute affairs you invite a who’s who of your famous friends to sing a song each, hire another who’s who of top-class musicians so famous that they don’t mind not getting a song of their own, and overlay the whole thing with massive orchestrations.
Here he has collected another impressive cast drawn from the worlds of music, theatre and the art world and put them together in the studio with a backing band of musicians as diverse as Donald Fagen, Van Dyke Parks, Marc Ribot, Budgie from the Banshees, Bill Frisell, Pete Thomas from the Attractions and more. Wilner is, first and foremost, a Bolan fan, and it shows. He remembers first hearing Tyrannosaurus Rex and thinking the records were “very beautiful, soothing and slightly creepy”. Decades later he decided to put this tribute together “to show Bolan as a composer with our typical cast of artists from different worlds that one rarely sees in the same place”
With some great, some not-so-great, a few you rather wish hadn’t been done at all. It’s always like that with tribute albums. But the best bits make it all worthwhile. As ever with these things, the more successful efforts are those where the artist brings their own personality to the song, while staying faithful to the essence of Bolan. The least successful are those that play it straight – no one needs a Bolan tribute act (there’s already T. Rextasy for that) and simply copy the original.
The plain truth is that no one can imitate Bolan. He was unique. A one-off. Never mind the fact that his voice is almost impossible to imitate.
And here’s the thing: the covers work best when the originals are less familiar. Which may explain why a couple of the big hits (Hot Love, Telegram Sam) are missing altogether from this double album. No one needs Joan Jett trundling through a perfunctory Jeepster, a song that cries out to be reinterpreted as the blues upon which it was based – Bolan borrowed freely from Chuck Berry and Howling Wolf on those hits and it would be fun to hear a modern-day bluesman take the songs back to their roots.
But let’s not dwell on the negatives. Kesha has the right idea on the opening Children Of The Revolution, transforming it into a soulful affair with saxophones squealing, a contrast to the oh-so-familiar chunky guitar riff of the original: different enough to hold the attention (all the more so when you know you’ve got MC5’s Wayne Kramer on guitar and Bolan’s son Rolan Bolan on backing vocals).
The interpretations are varied, as becomes clear quite rapidly. Before long a pattern emerges: the female artists are best at reimagining these tunes. Perhaps because Bolan himself was such an androgynous performer; in contrast to the laddishness of the Glam rockers who followed him – Sweet, Slade, Mud, Glitter – Bolan brought a sense of femininity to his music. Even when he was overtly sexual (“I want to SUCK you!”) he didn’t sound gender specific: he was so pretty that everyone fancied him, even if they couldn’t admit it.
Beth Orton’s interpretation of Hippy Gumbo also takes it to another place, with a bar room piano and an air of impending chaos, with horror-movie scrapes and rattles in the background and some nicely distorted guitar from Marc Ribot. It’s one of the more successful numbers; as is Guatemalan Gaby Moreno, the self-styled “Spanglish folk-soul” singer coming close to Bolan’s own tremulous vibrato on a sensitive bossa nova-influenced Beltane Walk featuring Bill Frisell, Van Dyke Parks and Attractions drummer Pete Thomas.
Meanwhile, Peaches deconstructs a short, sharp Solid Gold Easy Action in the style of Prince – with his androgynous glamour, perhaps the closest parallel to Bolan in the pop firmament. Less successful, sadly, is Lucinda Williams drawling sleepily through a funereal Life’s A Gas, punctuated by a pleasingly grungy guitar solo from Ribot, or possibly Bill Frisell: both are credited, and both are part of the house band assembled by Wilner, who recorded several songs on the same day in the same studio, lending the affair rather more continuity than is often the case on these pick’n’mix affairs.
As for the rest, the clear highlight is Nick Cave’s impassioned Cosmic Dancer, plangent strings enhancing the deep melancholia he has brought to his own work since family tragedy changed him for ever. A shout-out, too, to Marc Almond, never knowingly underblown, for his extravagantly orchestrated, verging-on-overwrought, kitscher-than-your-kitchen take on the already overwrought Teenage Dream.
The decadent nightclub mood is continued by Helga Davis, a New York performance artist, whose Organ Blues features an ominous drum beat and swirls of bass clarinet, and Todd Rundgren who, with the help of Donald Fagen on piano, converts Planet Queen into a slice of sci-fi cabaret. Speaking of which, Metric front woman Emily Haines sprinkles fairy dust on Ballrooms Of Mars to close Side 1 of this double album; her ghostly vocals seeping through the weirdness of a lavishly orchestrated arrangement. It’s really quite special.
Festival favourite King Khan offers a boisterous romp through I Love To Boogie which lives up to its title, if nothing else, and invests Bolan’s final hit (from 1976, a year before his death) with rather more life than Bolan’s own pallid effort. The big-name collaboration between U2 and Elton John on Get It On (irritatingly listed under its American title of Bang A Gong) is predictably terrible: despite selling more records than everyone else on the record between them – and then some – they sound like some bunch of middle-aged men at their local pub’s karaoke night. Not only is it uninspired, it’s the one thing Bolan never was.
Other misfires – and thankfully they are fewer than the successes – include actor-director-playwright John Cameron Mitchell interpreting Diamond Meadows in a style somewhere between MOR and musical theatre, despite the novelty of Showgirls actress Gina Gershon on Jew’s harp. Father John Misty falls into the copycat trap by doing an entirely forgettable Main Man, despite the legendary Van Dyke Parks on piano, while the German singer Nena, last heard of 36 years ago singing 99 Red Balloons, sadly adds nothing of note to Metal Guru though, to be fair, it is practically perfect in its original form and would probably have been best left alone.
It all ends with a hauntingly effective medley of Ride A White Swan and She Was Born To Be My Unicorn, sung virtually a capella by an angelic Maria McKee and gravelly Gavin Friday, duetting from what sounds like beyond the grave. Which is as fitting a finale as one could hope for to a record that reflects Wilner’s overarching ambition (and celebrity connections – it’s hard to imagine many people said no to taking part), and will be remembered, despite the odd misstep, as a fitting memorial to hthe life and work of the producer – and the man to whom he’s paying tribute.
Side A:
1. Children Of The Revolution – Kesha
2. Cosmic Dancer – Nick Cave
3. Jeepster – Joan Jett
4. Scenescof – Deveandra Banhart
5. Life’s A Gas – Lucinda Williams
6. Solid Gold, Easy Action – Peaches
7. Dawn Storm – Børns
Side B:
8. Hippy Gumbo – Beth Orton
9. I Love To Boogie King Khan
10. Beltane Walk – Gaby Moreno
11. Bang A Gong (Get It On) – U2 feat. Elton John
12. Diamond Meadows – John Cameron Mitchell
13. Ballrooms Of Mars – Emily Haines
Side C:
14. Main Man – Father John Misty
15. Rock On – Perry Farrell
16. The Street and Babe Shadow – Elysian Fields
17. The Leopards – Gavin Friday
18. Metal Guru – Nena
19. Teenage Dream – Marc Almond
Side D:
20. Organ Blues – Helga Davis
21. Planet Queen – Todd Rundgren
22. Great Horse – Jessie Harris
23. Mambo Sun – Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl
24. Pilgrim’s Tale – Victoria Williams with Julian Lennon
25. Bang A Gong (Get It On) Reprise – David Johansen
26. She Was Born To Be My Unicorn / Ride A White Swan – Maria McKee
Double vinyl. Angel Headed Hipster – Various artists sing ‘The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex.’
Nick Cave’s profoundly effective and affecting solo performance from earlier this year will be coming out to have and to hold this November.
These unique reinterpretations received effusive praise from any and all who bore witness. this is so much more than a live album or a live performance – these reinterpretations change the colour, tone and feel of every song in a way that proves that Cave is the finest songwriter of his (or, perhaps, any other) generation. This summer, Nick Cave hosted a ticketed livestream of a solo piano concert in London. That special will now be released as a live album and concert film. Packaged with four unreleased performances, Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace is coming to cinemas around the world on November 5th, and the live album will follow on November 20th. Watch the recording of “Galleon Ship” below.
Idiot Prayer features music from across Cave’s career, including early Bad Seeds, Grinderman, and material from his latest album Ghosteen. The film was shot by cinematographer Robbie Ryan and edited by Nick Emerson; Dom Monks recorded the music. Read Nick Cave’s statement about Idiot Prayer below.
The film Idiot Prayer evolved from my Conversations With… events. I loved playing deconstructed versions of my songs at these shows, distilling them to their essential forms. I felt I was rediscovering the songs all over again, and started to think about going into a studio and recording these reimagined versions at some stage – whenever I could find the time.
Then, the pandemic came—the world went into lockdown, and fell into an eerie, self-reflective silence. It was within this silence that I began to think about the idea of not only recording the songs, but also filming them. We worked with the team at Alexandra Palace—a venue I have played and love—on securing a date to film just as soon as they were allowed to re-open the building to us.
On 19th June 2020, surrounded by Covid officers with tape measures and thermometers, masked-up gaffers and camera operators, nervous looking technicians and buckets of hand gel, we created something very strange and very beautiful that spoke into this uncertain time, but was in no way bowed by it. This is the album taken from that film. It is a prayer into the void—alone at Alexandra Palace—a souvenir from a strange and precarious moment in history. I hope you enjoy it.
An essential album for every Nick Cave fan. we’re already counting down the days…the telegraph ****
“Cave’s solo live stream could be the most the beautiful and sombre performance he’s ever given” the guardian ****
“Cave’s performance in an empty hall, with just piano and voice, seems to try and ward off the terrifying silence of the covid-19 age” evening standard ****
“gravitas echoes beautifully in the void of an empty Alexandra Palace”
“This is the album taken from that film. It is a prayer into the void – alone at Alexandra Palace – a souvenir from a strange and precarious moment in history. I hope you enjoy it.”
After its cinematic release, Idiot Prayer will be released on vinyl, CD and streaming services on November 20th.
Powderfinger have revealed they’ll be releasing a new album this year. Band members Darren Middleton and Jon Coghill have announced that the band will be sharing an album of previously unreleased tracks later this year.”We were in putting together “Odyssey Number Five” 20th anniversary release and we went back and found like 50 songs that we had never released,” said Coghill during the interview. “And we’ve got the 10 best songs, we think. “There’s gonna be a new album this year at some stage. New songs. No one’s heard any of them. And it sounds pretty good to us. It’s been put together really well.”
The pair went on to reveal that the unnamed album will include tracks recorded as far back as 1998 from the Internationalist album era and that they have worked with long-running Powderfinger producer Nick DiDia to finalise the release. The album’s first single, “Day By Day”, is due to be released on Friday 18th September.
It’s already been a big year for Powderfinger fans, with the group reforming (for the first time since their disbandment in 2010) for a one-off fundraiser for Support Act and Beyond Blue. It seems that fans shouldn’t hold their breath for another performance anytime soon though, with Middleton saying “There’s no plans to do any more live lockdown videos or record any new songs or write any new songs together”.
Powderfinger are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album Odyssey Number Five this week, with a vinyl reissue and deluxe edition CD out this Friday.
Easily one of our most requested vinyl titles over the years and previously only available in a very expensive and out-of-print box set. Finally re-issued as a stand-alone vinyl pressing, 20 years to the day of the original release!, Available as a standard LP reissue or in a deluxe 2xLP 180-gram colour edition, remastered for vinyl by Don Bartley and expanded with 10 bonus tracks including acoustic versions, covers & B-sides.
The Metre by Powderfinger taken from the album Odyssey Number 5
Anjimile Chithambo, who records as Anjimile, is on a road to self-improvement on their debut album “Giver Taker”, and their folk-pop vibrancy certainly adds to that revitalizing spirit. There’s an earthy spirituality and youthful determination, boosted by radiant vocals and lyrics of patience and compassion. One highlight “Maker” blooms with nimble, bubbly guitars and rapturous percussion—it’s a symphony of wonder as Chithambo asks, “Have you ever seen anything quite like this?” Another key track, the reflective, downtempo “In Your Eyes,” grapples with identity and acceptance: “Was my body denied? / I can’t see what’s in your eyes / No, I can’t be what’s in your eyes.” Its warm rootsiness, indie-pop vivacity and African-influenced rhythms make for an incredibly inspired first LP.
“Maker” by Anjimile From the album, “Giver Taker”, out September 18th, 2020.
On Giver Taker, the gorgeous debut album by Anjimile, death and life are always entwined, wrapping around each other in a dance of reverence, reciprocity, and, ultimately, rebirth. Giver Taker is confident, intentional and introspective. Anjimile Chithambo (they/them, he/him) wrote much of the album while in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, as well as while in the process of living more fully as a nonbinary trans person. Loss hovers over the album, whose songs grieve for lost friends (“Giver Taker”) and family members (“1978”) along with lost selves (“Maker,” “Baby No More,” “In Your Eyes.”) But here, grief yields an opening: a chance for new growth. “A lot of the album was written when I was literally in the process of improving my mental health, so there’s a lot of hopefulness and wonder at the fact that I was able to survive,” says Chithambo. “Not only survive but restart my life and work towards becoming the person I was meant to be.”
“Baby No More” by Anjimile From the album, Giver Taker, out September 18, 2020.
Each song on the album is its own micro-journey, adding up to a transformative epic cycle created in collaboration with bandmate Justine Bowe of Photocomfort and New-York based artist/producer Gabe Goodman. “1978” and “Maker” both begin as Sufjan Stevens-esque pastoral ballads with Chithambo’s mesmerizing voice foregrounded against minimal instrumentation and swell into the realm of the majestic through the addition of warm, steady instrumentation (informed by the mix of 80’s pop and African music Chithambo’s Malawi-born parents played around the house) and harmonies by Bowe. “In Your Eyes” starts out hushed and builds to a crescendo via a mighty chorus inspired by none other than The Lion King. The allusion is fitting: each song encapsulates a heroic voyage, walked alone until accompanied by kindred souls. The choirs present throughout are equally deliberate. Chithambo grew up as a choir boy himself, and several songs (notably “Maker”) grasp not only towards reconciliation between his trans identity and his parents’ strong religious beliefs, but towards reclaiming his trans identity as an essential part of his own spirituality. (“[Less] Judeo-Christian, more ‘Colors of the Wind.’”) There is a boldness to this borrowing and shaping, a resoluteness that results from passing through hardship and emerging brighter, steadier. As a closing refrain on “To Meet You There” might sum it up: “Catalyst light of mine / now is your time.”
Lomelda—the indie project of Hannah Read—has shared her new full-length LP “Hannah”, out now via Double Double Whammy. Hannah follows her 2019 album “M for Empathy” as well as her covers EP with Hovvdy. In usual Lomelda fashion, lead single “Wonder” is cathartic and vulnerable. It’s soft, but it builds into something powerful and poignant, clocking in at just over two minutes. The album was recorded in a studio in Silsbee, Texas, over a period of a year.
Last year, Lomelda (aka Texas-born, L.A.-based singer/songwriter Hannah Read) released an out-of-the-blue album called “M for Empathy”. As its title suggests, the 11-song project explored empathy in all its forms through various sung stories and mini vignettes. But the album was lacking something—perhaps time: At only 16-minutes-long, it felt like we didn’t really receive the full scope of Read’s studies on the topic. Thankfully, there’s Hannah, Read’s charming M for Empathy follow-up that arrived last month. Where M for Empathy was shadowy and finicky at times, Hannah is more assured and robust (though it wouldn’t be “robust” compared to most other rock music today—Read’s voice is as hushed and restrained as ever). Hannah again finds Read thinking about empathy, compassion and human understanding. But this time, there’s more for the listener to unpack.
Performed by Hannah Read, Tommy Read, Andrew Hulett, Charlie Martin, Andrew Stevens, Zachary Daniel, Adan Carlo and Cody Green
Indie rock veteran Hamilton Leithauser follows his earlier studio release “The Loves of Your Life” with a new live album featuring selections from his annual residencies at New York City’s iconic Cafe Carlyle. Each is from January’s performance. Hello world! My live record is now streaming everywhere. There is also a handsome white vinyl edition now available here. I invite you to please pull up a chair and escape today’s worries with a listen.
“I didn’t realize at the time that the 5 shows I played in January at Cafe Carlyle would be the only live shows I would do in 2020,” he said in a press statement. “I’m glad I recorded one of them. I found the tapes a few months later during this quarantine, and realized I wanted to share a bunch of them with a wider audience. I’m glad I recorded one of them. I found the tapes a few months later during this quarantine, and realized I wanted to share a bunch of them with a wider audience. The band was awesome, and it’s the closest thing to playing live I have right now, so it really was a fun thing to put together. I’ve only ever played most of these songs 4-5 times, so we were really still learning them that night. Playing live is such a big part of my life, and I don’t know when I’ll actually be able to do it again, so in the meantime, I hope this record might transport the listener for 30 minutes to a small, candle-lit cafe table in an overcrowded room while my band is ripping it up.
Very excited to announce that those tapes make up Live! at the Café Carlyle LP, which will be yours on Friday, September 4th
Hamilton Leithauser performing “Isabella” from his upcoming album “The Loves of Your Life” at The Carlyle Hotel in New York City.
“Here They Come” performed by Hamilton Leithauser live @ the Carlyle Hotel in NYC
Wish You Hadn’t, was the debut EP from Philadelphia’s Corey Flood, was both unnerving and calm—hushed vocals and plaintive pop melodies softened their brooding guitars. Now, two years later, their debut full-length “Hanging Garden” is out, and it has a similar wired fuzziness, but their melodies are a bit sunnier this time. Although their distorted post-punk is still fairly grey-skied, their classic indie-pop sweetness is a small break in the clouds. Lines like “Maybe it is really nothing / but I was in love” from the driving jam “Down the Hill” underscore their melancholia perfectly. Their abstract, evocative lyrics are deeply contemplative cyclones—just like their saw-toothed guitars will rattle around your brain, thoughts swirl until they begin to fester, gnawing at one’s psyche.
Corey Flood’s first EP was self-described as “basement goth”: a dark, brooding rock record that nestled itself in the corners of the listener’s mind. Their debut full-length, out today on Fire Talks, follows along a similar path, but given the extra room to move around, the Philly-based trio (Ivy Gray-Klein on vocals and bass; Em Boltz on vocals and guitar; Juliette Rando on drums) take the time to explore a wider range of sounds and lend a depth to their lyrics.
With simple melodies repeated in each song, Hanging Garden can put the listener in a dream-like state and flow seamlessly from one song into another, but listen closer and you can hear ideas running throughout the album: an atmosphere of distrust, strained relationships, and recklessness versus caution.
From Corey Flood’s debut album ‘Hanging Garden’ Out September 4th 2020 on Fire Talk.
The Allman Betts Band has returned with their stunning sophomore album “Bless Your Heart”. The band recorded at Muscle Shoals Sounds Studio on two-inch tape, just as they did with their debut, Down To The River. The band enlisted veteran producer Matt-Ross Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine and Elvis Presley) who also produced Down To The River. Bless YourHeart shows the band stretching their musical legs making it quite apparent that they have gelled into a tour de force. The musical themes in their latest effort hit on everything from serious and deeply personal themes, to light-hearted music that will make you want to boogie.
If Down To The River was the sound of the band’s combustible sparks igniting, then Bless Your Heart is their bonfire, built for the summer of 2020 and beyond; a double-album follow-up fuelled by road-forged camaraderie and telepathic musical intensity, vibrantly reflecting the individual and collective experiences of these seven, all drawing inspiration from the band’s symbolic hometown—a place Devon Allman calls “the United States of Americana.
Although I liked The Allman Betts Band debut album, it did not leave a real lasting impression. This album is a very different story. I love it. The musical inspirations are obvious but Devon Allman and Duane Betts are not slaves to it and add their own take on the Allman Brothers Band musical legacy. Devon and Duane are joined by another musical family member Berry Duane Oakley on bass, honouring his late father Berry Oakley. This being a Southern Rock tinged effort, you need three guitars and Devon and Duane are joined by Johnny Stachela on the slippery slide guitar. Also noted keys player John Ginty adds some great background colouring on the Hammond and the Rhodes. Of course there had to be two drummers, stand up John Lum and R Scott Bryan.
The opening track ‘Pale Horse Rider’ really sets the mood and proves that Devon Allman is a fine singer, a broody and stormy piece with the guitars all combining perfectly. ‘King Crawler’ could easily pass for a track off ‘Exile on Main Street’ by the Stones with great sax work by Art Edmaiston . The 12 minute instrumental ‘Savannah’s Dream’ brings back memories of the Allman Brothers debut, Devon and Duane plus Johnny do Duane and Dickey proud with their guitar work. Devon and Duane’s singing impresses throughout.
There is so much to enjoy here as the long running time of 13 tracks and 71.15 minutes really give the songs a chance to breath and the band the opportunity to flex their considerable musical muscles.
This is a very good album by any classic rock standard.
Picking up from where the Allman Brothers Band left off, Devon Allman (son of Gregg), Duane Betts (son of Dickey) and Berry Duane Oakley establish their own identity on their sophomore release.
The Fat Angel Sings 