Deko 2024
Molten gold and easy action from masters of the trade who like their funk dirty ‘n’ heavy – and greedily keep it in short (power) supply.
Jimmy Kunes and Angus Clark have known each other for ages and discussed working together for a long time – hell, the veterans even started and then abandoned several numbers they cowrote. Yet, while it was only recently that the former, a singer whose résumé includes stints with such legendary ensembles as SAVOY BROWN and CACTUS, and the latter, a touring guitarist for Joe Lynn Turner and TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA, finally joined forces, they already finished a studio record and took a few of fresh cuts to the stage. Calling the ensemble’s eponymous debut a full-length album may mean to slightly exaggerate the run of the 28-minute-long offering, but suggesting these eight pieces don’t deliver a punch and don’t leave the audience gasping for air would bend the truth – which is probably why the platter’s span had to be condensed: to focus, and also to soften, the otherwise too mighty a blow.
Indeed, there’s no reason to bemoan small foibles of the song-cycle that’s started up with the sweet harmonic grime of “Step Up Step Aside” whose wild wail will make a question “Are they experienced?” roaringly irrelevant, and that’s signed off with a conceptual sequencing of a couple of outstanding tracks. Those are “Drift” and “Free And Homeward Bound”: one an oxymoron-riding, transparent yet panache-driven, ballad with crunchy chorus and luxuriant middle-eight, and the other an acoustic, swamp-drenched blues grabbing the listener by the balls with the “I used to get so high in your garden” line. So let “For My Life” throw its weight around and burst into ragged funk, which Van Romaine’s drums and Winston Roye’s bass give a robust groove to, and let “Cross To Bear” surrender to a slow burn of spiritual swirl before Kunes’ gusty vocals allow Clark’s fingers weave a delicate lace for a solo: that’s all part of the show anyway. However, where “Release Yourself” bares the group’s cinematically aggressive, albeit restrained, angle, and “Dead Of The Night” finds Jimmy’s copper pipes dance around Angus’ serrated riff, “Let It Begin” goes for the the jugular via a piano-sprinkled, frivolous shuffle.
So yes, let it begin. With a gambit like this, stopping their game would make Angus and Jimmy bandits rather than bandmembers.
*****