The Ultimate ROCK REVIEWS Section
CLASSIC ROCK RATINGS
En Minor
When The Cold Truth Has Worn Its Miserable Welcome Out SEASONS OF MIST
Former Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo goes Leonard Cohen.
Remember that miserablist, druggy and weirdly alternative streak that crept into Pantera’s 90s output – songs like Good Friends And A Bottle Of Pills or Suicide Note Part II? Well here’s a whole album of ex-Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo tapping that vein, and doing it better.
Backed by cello, slide guitar and keyboards on intensely melancholy soundscapes like Mausoleums, On The Floor and Dead Can’t Dance, Anselmo sounds like a southern, loaded Leonard Cohen. Thanks to having several decades under his belt, Anselmo now has the vocal authority to deliver this manner of sonically rich material as impressively as he has always fronted metal.
There’s not one ounce of metal here, but if you crave well-orchestrated mausoleum music that eases you into a New Orleans swamp, then absolutely look no further.
Jason Arnopp
All Them Witches
Nothing As The Ideal
NEW WEST
Scorching new album from the psych-blues enigmas.
Psychedelic rockers are two a penny these days. Whether it’s pot-addled beardos worshipping at the altar of Black Sabbath, or Kevin Parker’s latest Tame Impala offshoots in Western Australia, everyone’s been getting their freak on.
Based in Nashville – but wholly removed from the countrified ‘contemporary Nashville scene’ – All Them Witches freak out with more power and originality than most. But on 2018’s ATW album they seemed to fall back to earth. Which was fine, but a little lukewarm for those of us enthralled by the otherworldly delights of their previous records, (especially 2017’s boundary-pushing Sleeping Through The War). Perhaps they just needed a change of scene, judging by the resounding success of Nothing As The Ideal.
Comprising eight enveloping tracks, including two almost-ten-minute epics, it feels as much like a film soundtrack as it does a hooky rock’n’roll album. From Saturnine & Iron Jaw’s haunting ambience and chugging Led Zep guitars, to the trippy, pitch-black tones of See You Next Fall and the cathartic finale Rats In Ruin, it’s a dark, enticing feast for the senses, with one foot in ancient times and the other in some faroff dimension.
Polly Glass
The Pretty Things
Bare As Bone, Bright As Blood MADFISH MUSIC
The last days of May
It seems appropriate that the final Pretty Things album, recorded a few months before frontman Phil May’s recent death, should unite him and guitarist Dick Taylor on a set of acoustic blues so suited to these stalwarts of British R&B.
The songs are embellished with ghostly bottleneck guitars, touches of violin and harmonica, and in the case of the title track an inky-black folk sound seemingly dragged out of some doom-laden cellar situated beneath the garage where they learnt their trade. A visit to Robert Johnson’s Love In Vain and Come On In My Kitchen reflect deep roots, typified by the singer as a natural depiction of growing old and setting your young self free. As such it’s a fine epitaph for the sweet Pretty Things, described by producer Mark St. John as “the tainted, dark royalty, banished from the rock establishment”. And all the better for that.
Max Bell
Ace Frehley
Origins Vol.2 EONE/SPV
Former Kiss guitarist goes back to his roots. Again.
Ace Frehley has always had a way with other people’s songs, something first illustrated back in 1978 when a brilliantly sloppy take on Hello’s New York Groove made his the most successful of the Kiss solo albums. But in Origins Vol.2, his second covers album in five years, there’s good and bad.
The approach is much the same as for Vol.1, with more songs by Led Zeppelin, the Stones and Cream, and another duet with Lita Ford. Except this time Frehley revisits just one Kiss classic, She, rather than three, and without Paul Stanley on the guest list there’s a cameo for another ex-Kiss guitarist, Bruce Kulick.
The highlight is a smoking version of Deep Purple’s cosmic rock banger Space Truckin’, a perfect fit for the Space Ace musically and lyrically. The low point is a clumsy Jumpin’ Jack Flash, with Ford overdoing it. But then for Ace, consistency was always an alien concept.
Paul Elliott
Hustler
Reloaded BLACK CAT
Unlikely return for the yobs behind Get Outa My ’Ouse.
Middlesex band Hustler released two high-energy hard rock albums (High Street and Play Loud) in the 70s, and attained cult status via riotous supports to Queen, Status Quo and Uriah Heep. Although Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott still flies the flag on their behalf, the odds were stacked against this comeback, which comes 44 years after the band’s original demise.
Two new guitarists now combine to replace Micky Llewellyn, who passed away in 2014, and Steve Haynes’s vocal tracks were pulled from demos made in the 80s, before illness cruelly robbed him of his voice. On paper, should probably suck, but in fact the band sound full of life. Opener is impossibly Heep-y, and the cowbell-tastic are highly recommended to disciples of Hammond-soaked 70s commercial hard rock. Overall, is as convincing and emphatic a comeback as you could wish for.
