Cleopatra 2025
Two Wolf
Southern rock stalwart gathers a pack of his own to howl at the moon in style and with swagger.
It took Greg T. Walker a mere fifty years, that passed since the release of “No Reservations” by BLACKFOOT, a band the bassist had concentrated on after leaving LYNYRD SKYNYRD, to emerge with a project of his own, and it was worth the wait, even if nobody waited for fresh music from the septuagenarian. Still, TWO WOLF not only preserve the original sweet smoke of what the veteran has been doing for decades, but also pull in a few classics into their repertoire to proudly expose his ensemble’s pedigree. This is where the infectious effortlessness of the foursome’s first album comes from – however, one wouldn’t need to know the quartet’s history to thoroughly enjoy their powerful blues-tinged grooves and licks which exude pure class and engage the listener on both primal and cerebral levels.
As vocal leads make the rounds between Walker and six-stringers Lance Lopez and Kris Bell who serve up greasy riffs, shot through with Greg’s throbbing rumble, such robust evergreens as “Fox Chase” and “Too Hard To Handle” find their proper place within the new record’s context. Moreover, the acoustically tinctured perennial “Diary Of A Working Man” rather logically precedes the panache-filled “Livin’ For Tomorrow” and follows the dynamically impressive “The Wrong Road” that, in its turn, develops the theme of “Traveler” – another wondrously streamlined blast from the past, an old track which never before saw the inside of a studio – to outline a vague concept. There’s no need of a story to be told, though, once “Keep On Movin'” breaks the silence with much gusto and, propelled by Rusty Valentine’s piledriver drums, roars ahead and lets a series of guitar solos sear the ears, while “Will I Believe” rolls out a mightily twangy undercurrent so familiar to Southern rock aficionados, and the invigorating “Great Spirit” adds a hypnotic chant to the flow, finally linking Greg to his Creek roots.
Yet whereas the tightly woven, almost hysterical “Romeo” merges tasty heaviosity with nervy folk vibe, “The Blessed & The Cursed” reaches for epic resonance to provide the platter with a lava-like, ecstatic singalong finale that will linger on and set the bar up high for the collective’s next opus. And there must be one, after a start like this.
****4/5
