Dave Loveland 2022
Dangerous Rhythm
Brisbane master of six-string twang finally brings forth a long-overdue individual offering.
Despite his constant presence on the music scene – from his late ’60s stint with FRIENDSHIP LEAGUE back in England to his current tenure with THE BLUE CATS in Australia – Dave Loveland’s name is hardly familiar to most of the listeners who are destined to like the axeman’s first-ever solo album. Maybe it’s because the veteran’s been busy with other aspects of his life or waiting for the right moment to cherry-pick the finest fruits of his talent as a composer, yet finally the time came to perform those choice cuts and let their writer’s biography and geography fill the tunes with personal feelings. Personal to a familial extent, with Dave’s scions Toby and Barney accompanying Loveland Sr.’s flurries of notes on, respectively, acoustic guitar and bass.
Indeed, the master’s playing a dangerous game here, as the record’s title track tries to fool the audience into believing he’s covering “The Fool On The Hill” only to go off on a tangent and turn it into a spaghetti-western panorama of aural sierras, but where lesser mortals used to opt for muscular strum, Loveland’s fingers weave a finer tapestry – fueled by his impressively varied techniques. So if the ranchera approach to “Mexican Trip” and “Hopping Around” seems rather polished, the surf-rock ripples emerging in this piece’s midst are as excitingly resonant as the ebb and flow of “Blue Sands” are vitally vibrant and the unhurried moves of “Peruvian Strut” cinematically mysterious, even exotically cosmic when Dave’s strings attain a folk-informed tone. And while “I Never Thought This” streams romantic tunefulness in the space between melodic filigree and physical twang, the jazzy “Blue Horizon” sticks to old-timey elegance – reflected in the fusion of “Cool Groove” further down the line.
Still, “Remembering Bazza” oozes countrified joie-de-vivre as opposed to “Run In The Hills” which projects melancholy on a sonic silkscreen, whereas the stormy “Moving Clouds” sounds exquisitely heavy, and “Changing” stages am emotional finale in a multilayered progressive-rock way. Worth the wait, “Dangerous Rhythm” is as immersive as it gets.
****2/3
