Wishbone Ash - Coat of Arms (2020)

 

Six years after the band’s last studio release, 2014’s Blue Horizon, Wishbone Ash’s 2020 album Coat of Arms boasts the band’s first lineup change since 2007’s Power of Eternity. Longtime guitarist Muddy Manninen left for a solo career. Wishbone Ash’s Andy Powell, despite the interval, is no stranger to change. The band drafted Mark Abrahams as Manninen’s replacement and early returns, based on the band’s live gigs pre-COVID and this new release, reveal the band has scarcely lost a step.

Other changes are evident in the songwriting. Lyricist Ian Harris, a significant contributor to an assortment of Wishbone Ash albums, is absent for the first time in years. Despite the loss, Wishbone Ash remains an articulate and intelligent band who tackle their work with the same inspired engagement defining their “classic” material. There’s no question the band isn’t afraid of embracing recognized songwriting styles, but they do so with an individual voice honed by experience, talent, and personal conviction.

“We Stand as One” has a mixed effect as an album opener. Many listeners will wish the band came out of their corner setting a faster pace but quibbling with the song’s unifying sentiments is impossible and the song makes it case in language all their own. The song’s succinct central guitar melody carries the day and Powell glides through its vocal melody with relaxed confidence. It takes an unexpected musical turn during the song’s second half and the band stretches out with rewarding results.

The mix of the band’s classic twin guitar attack, traditional flavor, and progressive sensibilities are obvious during the album’s title track. Its lyrics adopt a grim view of the modern world many listeners will peg as reflective of these times when we wonder if the center will hold and Powell’s voice, still strong and expressive after many years, fills the lines with a vital spark. “Empty Man” is one of the album’s brightest lights. The steady engine room playing of bassist Bob Skeat and drummer Joe Crabtree gives the cut a fluid and flexible foundation, but the lead work during the track’s final half steals the show. The lyrics are pointed and spare its subject nothing.

“Floreana” is a beautiful gem in the tradition of Wishbone Ash ballads such as “Persephone” but never any sort of imitation. It has a sturdy narrative thread running through its lyrics and Powell’s singing draws out the possibilities present in every line. Once again, however, the chief strength this song builds on is the exceptional guitar playing laced throughout the track. Powell and Abrahams are a formidable pairing throughout the entire release and this is one of their high points. The fifth track “Drive” runs on a mid-tempo rock groove but there’s some stinging lead guitar coloring the mix and giving the song added bite.

“It’s Only You I See” is another high point on Coat of Arms. It is impossible, whatever you think of the comparison between the band’s present and past, to deny Powell and company reach a musical peak with this performance. It is more than an on-point composition and performance, however, as Powell serves up one of his best vocals yet. Powell and Abrahams’ guitar playing during this track is yet another highlight. “Too Cool for AC” has one of the raunchiest Wishbone Ash guitar riffs in recent memory and the band attacks the nasty edge with audible relish.

“Back in the Day” has commercial potential, for sure, and the band rocks out with convincing abandon. It’s a shrewd move underlining the muscular electric guitar with supporting acoustic rhythm playing, it fattens the overall sound, and the straight-ahead energy of the riffing doesn’t stick around long enough to wear out its welcome. Powell and his cohorts continue exploring a meditative vein with the track “Déjà-Vu” and embrace a more ethereal mood than any other song included on Coat of Arms. The light production effects applied to the presentation deepen its atmospheric allure rather than cheapening it. It’s the shortest track on the album, but few listeners will feel cheated.

Coat of Arms’ penultimate cut “When the Love is Shared” grabs your attention thanks to the steady climb it takes from the beginning. The four-piece builds dramatic peaks in the song’s second half many will mention among the album’s best moments and Powell nails a rousing vocal. There is a smattering of well-placed harmonies throughout the collection and their presence in this track is tasteful and effective.

“Personal Halloween” ends Coat of Arms in perhaps improbable fashion for some but Wishbone Ash has always packed the occasional surprise. The blues influences stamped deep into this track are a comfortable overall fit for the band and the inclusion of brass is a crucial curveball this late on the release. Let’s hope we don’t wait so long for the next album. Wishbone Ash’s latest studio release
continues a string of artistic successes stretching back into the late 20^th century and their creative energies show no sign of flagging. It’s more than a rock album, to be sure, but rates among 2020’s best rock releases.  

Muddy Manninen - River Flows (2020)

Muddy Mannien

Bold experimentation isn’t necessary for music. It has its place, naturally, but the timeless value of communicating yourself through melody, vocals, words, and rhythm can never be displaced as music’s principal vehicle for reaching the masses. High-flown efforts in a musical vein often succeed at the expense of making a deeper connection with listeners. There’s no danger of that with Muddy Manninen’s new solo album River Flows. The former Wishbone Ash guitarist capitalizes on the promise listeners heard with his debut solo release Long Player with a ten-song collection affirming the strengths of the latter and building on its achievements.

There are several guests appearing throughout the release. Manninen’s five-star instrumental skills do not readily translate into the sort of vocal presentation he wants for these tracks so Manninen chooses a familiar route for many talented guitarists and works with an assortment of singers. The opener “Make Believe” benefits from compelling synergy between Melanie Denard’s lead vocal and the musical arrangement. Her voice is equal parts grit and soul and she delivers Manninen’s lyrics as if she penned them herself. Free and Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke contributes a muscular and canny performance behind the kit.

Manninen lets it rips with swampy lap steel on “Hey You” and its bluesy stomp never wavers. Tom Gilkes plays drums on this cut instead of Kirke, but the quality never dips and he puts down a deep groove the musicians ride from beginning to end. Kev Moore’s singing is closer to a growl but make no mistake his pipes are strong. Manninen and Gregory Wilson-Cobb supply effective backing vocals giving the chorus more oomph. Longtime Wishbone Ash lyricist Ian Harris makes the first of his four contributions to the release and his writing is every bit as punchy as the track’s beat.

Moore returns on the album’s third cut. “Daytona Beach” and shares songwriting credits with Manninen. He changes his vocal approach some and gives listeners a much more straight-forward performance than the preceding number, but the musical highlight of the track is Manninen’s near-threatening wah-wah licks laced through the arrangement. Including the violin is an unexpected move but serves the song well.

Muddy and Chris Melhuish share vocals on the fifth track “Take These Blues Away from Me”. Harris’ lyrics ransack familiar imagery but phrases them in such a way they possess a much more individual ring than you might expect. It’s one of the album’s longer songs and affords Manninen an opportunity to craft extended and thoughtful solos shorter tracks cannot contain. Bassist Gregg Sutton has played for an array of five-star talents ranging from Bob Dylan through blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa, among others. His vocal and songwriting contribution to River Flows, “Last One to Know”, reaches the same high standard as its predecessor. Sutton’s idiosyncratic vocal helps set the track apart and Gregory Wilson-Cob’s background vocals help make another hot chorus burn even brighter.

One of the album’s two instrumentals, “The Wedge” never overstays its welcome. It is, as well, nimble and holds your attention with minimal effort. Much of this is, of course, thanks to Manninen’s playful and ever-inventive guitar lines pair up with Tomi Malm’s synthesizers and keyboard work with significant results; it expands the song’s color and scope. The heart of the album for many, however, will come with the closing duo of “The River” and “River Flows”. The first of these two tracks are an outright folk song. Melanie Denard returns to deliver a stunning vocal; she transforms Ian Harris’ lyrics into performed poetry. Manninen returns to the lap steel as well and, though its presence isn’t as pronounced as what we heard during the earlier “Hey You”, it brings a welcome added dimension to the performance.

He closes the release with its title song. This meditative five-minute plus long instrumental has an introspective spirit and a stately pace. Manninen never rushes its development and the nuance in his playing is outstanding. It’s an impassioned final curtain for a release never intent on remaking the musical wheel but committed to making you feel. 

My Sleeping Karma - Moksha (2015)

Written by Jason Hillenburg, posted by blog admin

It’s another German guitar band, another trio, and more instrumentals. The popularity of this configuration, particularly with European bands, isn’t difficult to understand. It’s an indelible combination in the public consciousness, cuts down on costs across the board, and provides a live experience entirely different from larger musical outfits. My Sleeping Karma’s new album from Napalm Records, Moksha, isn’t cookie cutter guitar rock with a groove. Power trios have an uphill climb in training listeners, new and old alike, to not associate them with legendary bands who defined the approach. My Sleeping Karma, however, have impressively mixed the relaxed, airy confidence of psychedelia and progressive rock with pyrotechnic riffing.

“Prithvi”, the album opener, embodies many of its best virtues. It has extended musical range without ever over-indulging its running time and the arrangement’s careful canvasing leaves a lot of room for the instruments to breathe. There’s nothing cluttered here and nary a sliver of daylight seen. The band weaves their parts with seamless pacing attributable to their experience working together and the songwriting’s careful orchestration to avoid any musical lulls. It develops slowly, but dramatically. The first of five such “Interludes” is a largely ambient piece, but when the sonic elements cohere into a shape resembling song late in the track, the music takes an uniquely exotic, Eastern flavor. The pensive opening of “Vayu” creates quite an elegiac mood over the track’s first two minutes before the mood dissipates and fire floods the instruments. The song’s second half maintains that same dark hue, but My Sleeping Karma’s thundering rock attack raises things to an almost painful intensity.

“Akasha” spends most of its duration simmering and anchored by a mammoth backbeat threatening to blow open a hole in the song at any moment. However, instead of climaxing with fire and blood, the track implodes and assumes a more expansive, progressive character. “Akasha” shows their impressive stylistic dexterity – they shift easily between light and shade and manipulate those dynamics to their maximum potential. The title track runs close to ten minutes in length and strikes a starker, more dramatic contrast between light and shade than any song on the album.

It’s easy to get a sense of the album’s conceptual leanings when certain details begin emerging. As one example, each of the album’s five interludes have distinct musical characters despite their similarities, but none run longer than two and a half minutes. The band’s progressive muscle flexes best during these brief songs and, as the album nears its conclusion, the guitar takes on an increasingly prominent role supplanting the ambient tendencies in earlier tracks. The guitar work carries “Interlude 4” thanks to its melancholy melodies and how the band gradually coalesces around it.

The finale, “Agni”, has a stronger rock base than many of the other extended pieces and definitely more energy. The tempo never races away, but the rhythm section provides a hard-charging pulse that allows the guitar pyrotechnics to achieve new intensity while expanding, at other moments, into different textures. My Sleeping Karma sets themselves apart from the pack with Moksha and delivers a high quality, tightly constructed instrumental album.

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues (2015)

After fifteen years, Goatsnake reappears with Black Age Blues from Southern Lord Recordings like Jeremiah returning full of fire and brimstone. The four piece make judicious use of guest stars, but none of those shots overshadow the devastating groove-drunk stomp achieved by the core unit. Nick Raskulinecz’s decision to not excessively muddy the bottom end at the expense of the guitars and other instruments results in a balanced mix. If this must be deemed a comeback, as it invariably must, Goatsnake’s presentation couldn’t be better. 

Contributions from the Soul Vocal Trio are an important factor in making the first song, “Another River to Cross”, a memorable opener. The scat singing, akin to Claire Torry’s turn on Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky”, has a hallucinatory, anguished edge like some spectral wail in a southern gothic. None of this is poseur nonsense. The spare, but painfully precise, acoustic blues kicking off the song is ripped straight from Mississippi Delta earth. When the full band enters, the riff mushrooms into a steady musical hammer that drags listeners along at a slow crawl. The song title is a little clichéd, but this is a well played, pulverizing opener full of light and shade.

“Coffee and Whiskey” continues the band’s penchant for stripping grooves down to their simplest components. It isn’t for everyone’s taste, but every note is on trial for its life. The band pivots through a series of churning riffs that never overstay their welcome. Anderson’s brief lead guitar flurries betray no suppressed urge for self-serving heroics and, instead, provide effective and necessary color. The title track, “Black Age Blues”, begins as a full-on, over the top musical assault. Pete Stahl’s emotive voice has such woozy urgency that it’s reminiscent of some street corner preacher half mad on corn whiskey and his visions. 

“Graves” ranks high as one of the album’s tastiest grooves and highlights a key, but perhaps underrated, aspect of the band’s musical attack. The balanced mix is an important element in their presentation, but an overall aesthetic governs the band that “Graves” illustrates. Nothing is an afterthought with Goatsnake – each part has equal weight and a common direction. The backing vocals only bolster an otherwise strong vocal and help draw further attention to their above average lyrical content. 

Goatsnake concludes the album with the blood-soaked Götterdämmerung of “A Killing Blues”. This stark and turgid blues has the feel of a final definitive statement for the band, but like the entire album, there isn’t a moment here that betrays pretension. Stahl’s vocal is one of his best and the dynamics are off-scale. A finer curtain-closer, complete with visions of Stagger Lee and violent redemption, is difficult to imagine.

Wizard Eye - s/t (2015)

Wizard Eye have been a fixture on the East Coast metal scene since their 2005 debut and their latest self-titled full length from Black Monk Records carries all of the trademark instrumental excellence and physicality defining the best of previous efforts and their well-respected live performances. This isn't a band afraid to challenge themselves and over the course of the new album's nine songs, Wizard Eye sets a new benchmark for what listeners can expect from this powerhouse unit.

The album opens with "Eye of the Deep", a monolithic and highly cinematic blast of guitar rock. Wizard Eye builds immediate tension with an introduction conjuring enormous nautical dread. This beastly stirring coalesces into aggressive, wah-wah driven riffing. The lead work has a surprisingly melodic edge and concerns itself with meshing well with the surrounding chaos. "Flying/Falling" begins ominously with scattered percussion and a fuzzed out bass pulse. In some ways, it sounds remarkably similar to the opener, but Wizard Eye peppers the song with a number of accents and outright variations that the song assumes its own identity. The vocals are reminiscent of Dave Sherman from Spirit Caravan and Earthride fame, but never imitative. "Phase Return" hits a similarly satisfying note and has massive swing thanks to a particularly effective marriage of riff and drumming. Wizard Eye might deal with relatively conventional subject matter for the genre, but their hard-nosed and uncompromising presentation imbues even the most imaginative flights of fancy with gutter-level realism.

 "Drowning Daydream" has more diffuse, elongated riffing and doesn't bear down on listeners with the same intensity that "Phase Return" conjures, but it's just a different mood from Wizard Eye's palette. It's a remarkably effective bluesy stomper once you strip away the distortion and other genre affectations away from this song. The improbably titled "My Riposte Is like Lightning" dirties up the vocals, but the musical firepower summons up a claustrophobic descent into hell. The guitars seem to be constantly unraveling, falling somehow, and the plethora of tempo shifts gives the track a manic quality. When it settles into a groove near the end for a searing wah-wah fueled guitar solo, the effect is tremendous. It's like the guitars finally imposing their will over a previously untamable beast. "Nullarbor" presents another side of Wizard Eye's talent with its quasi-Arabesque melodies and lightly dissonant qualities. The second half of the instrumental is much more progressive than the first and introducing new sonic elements helps, in a significant way, to make such textural shifts convincing. It soon segues into a much more traditional, rock-oriented final section. The track isn't a clear-cut artistic victory. While on one hand, it's impossible not to find merit with their imagination and adventurous musical spirit, it's equally possible to find the running time of "Nullarbor" a bit self-indulgent in light of the relatively few melodic and instrumental variations it explores. Nonetheless, it's one of the album's most fascinating tracks.

The album concludes with a final slab of elephantine riffing in "Stoneburner". Wizard Eye is expert in creating enormous, multi-sensory soundscapes that suggest more to listeners than they ever reveal. The band finds a slow, swinging groove and rides it out to its logical conclusion. The slide towards extreme vocals continues on the finale, but it's never so unintelligible that it becomes purely theatrical. Wizard Eye's latest self-titled release solidifies their standing as one of the best underground metal bands working today. They move within an identifiable tradition without ever sacrificing their own creativity.

Palmer T. Lee - Winebringer (2018)

WEBSITE: https://palmertlee.com/
FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/Palmer-T-Lee-292792767448559/

Minnesota born Palmer T. Lee, one half of acclaimed The Lowest Pair, steps out with his debut solo album Winebringer. Lee culled his inspiration for the album’s title from a collection of poems entitled The Book of the Winebringer composed by renowned Sufi poet Hafiz. The choice is deeply appropriate as a decidedly poetic feel envelopes the album from the first and reflects the introspective reach of Lee’s growing artistic powers. It likewise explores the personal cost incurred from a particularly difficult time in Lee’s life without ever finding the songwriting mired in obscurity. Instead, any discerning and emotionally alert listener will connect with the material with little effort and find the songs reveal deeper rewards with each new hearing.

The album’s subject matter is rather traditional in a way – Winebringer’s nine songs are a searching appraisal of the love and longing remaining following the end of a relationship. The intimate sound of the release brings it close to you – “Rag” opens things with Lee’s voice and acoustic guitar assuming a nearly spectral presence, but the lo-fi aspects of the recording only serve to draw you further in. Lee’s poetics are unquestionable, but the emotional tenor of his voice accentuates their quality. The patient unraveling of the opener’s arrangement continues with the second song “Aw Jeez”. Lee’s guitar work has no pretense of false virtuosity – instead, it serves the material while demonstrating obvious skill and the strain induced from ruined love comes through in its imagery and plain-spoken pleading.

“Fat Barred Owl” begins with particularly striking imagery never over-exerting itself for effect and the music has a slightly faster tempo than we hear with the album’s first two tracks. The guitar work is distinguished by some tasty embellishments that never distract listeners from the lyrical material. The album’s sixth cut, “Rice and Beets”, kicks off in ghostly fashion as Lee ruminates over a dream scene with hushed wonder. His songwriting completely brings us into the experience without ever overplaying its hand and, despite running over seven minutes, never tests our patience. It ends appropriately with a melancholy fade. Another high point arrives with the song “Moon You” and Lee is joined by an additional voice with moving results. The arrangement, likewise, moves beyond a reliance on his guitar work and bringing fiddle into the mix helps strengthen the longing in the heart of the song.

The album’s title song returns us to the customary marriage of Lee’s guitar and voice. His vocals reach new heights here – he is unafraid to push his voice hard in order to make the reality of his loss real for listeners and the level of lyrical detail reflects this as well. Often times such material can prove to be too much of a downer for us or, ultimately, self indulgent. There’s a telling control, however, in Lee’s artistry illustrating his ability to laden the tracks with significant detail and spare listeners any of the dross we might hear from lesser performers. Winebringer is an impressive achievement in every way from a songwriter, musician, and artist who has found his stride despite immense pain.