SMALL JACKETS – IV

Transubstans 2013

SMALL JACKETS - IV

SMALL JACKETS – IV

No square things for the fourth album of Italian foursome who rock hard ‘n’ sweet.

One glance at the songs titles of this 10-tracker reveals its style, glittery blues. How else can pieces such as “Mama Said” or “Ball ‘N Chain” sound? What can’t be revealed without drilling into their grooves is how tasty their sway is, the guitars of opening salvo “Bridgehead” setting the mood and the pace for the heavy velocity to cut it in fine fashion. Once Mark Oak’s bass runs in unison with singer Lu Silver’s guitar and Eddy Current rolls a slider on his fret, adrenaline kicks in, and all the mundane fretting fizzles out with harmonica and Hammond place an H-bomb into the rhythm. More so, there’s humor to a lot of Sunset Strip glam here to rock arenas and mock simpletons on the likes of the countrified “Trouble Blues”, full of background picking and speedy riffs, and the retro-styled “Heard It On The X”.

Factor in the modern buzz of “Wanderlust” to counterbalance it, and you have a record as close to immaculate pledge of classicism allegiance as it gets, slight ‘n’ sly hints at LIZZY, PURPLE and SABBATH only spicing it all up. Much more interesting – and teasing – are the hints at the jam provenance of some of these songs that must have killer concert versions. A live album would be more than welcome at the current point of the Italians’ career, in order to seal their bid to greatness. Closing with the catchy, piano-sprinkled rock ‘n’ roll “The Wall Of Sound”, the quartet also welcomes a bout of bounding – balls to the wall, amici!

****1/2

July 2, 2013

Category(s): Reviews
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