Page 28 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

STURGILL SIMPSON

30 Sound & Fury ELEKTRA

Nashville’s most eclectic
talent outdid himself on
this dazzling fourth
album, for which
Simpson cast off the
countryisms of 2016’s
Grammy-winning A Sailor’s Guide To Earth
in favour of heavy psychedelia and rip-
snorting jams. Issued in tandem with
Netflix’s dystopian anime film of the same
name, Sound & Fury revealed him to be
a post-Sabbath rocker of genuine might,
heading up a fearsome four-piece band. RH
Killer track: Fastest Horse In Town

JIM JONES AND THE
29 RIGHTEOUS MIND
CollectiV MASONIC
The second album from
Jones’s swamp-rocking
Righteous Mind found
the ever-reliable ex-Thee
Hypnotics, Black Moses
Jim Jones Revue
and
frontman cherry-picking from his past to
Volbeat deliver a firestorm of psyched-up, garage-
born, groove-driven, sexed-up, snake-
STEVE HACKETT handling, gospel-diabolique,
32 At The Edge Of Light TOP 5 rock’n’rollicking fuckabilly mayhem.
INSIDE OUT With JJATRM’s core quintet augmented by
The former Genesis COUNTRY occasional Primal Scream guitarist ‘Little’
guitarist capped a highly Barrie Cadogan, soul siren Sister Cookie,
productive decade in ALBUMS operatic Slovenian Vesna Potrasin and
dazzling style with this (on Attack Of The Killer Brainz) ex-Hypnotics
refined and esoteric Ray Hanson and Phil Smith, CollectiV’s
Words: Rob Hughes
reco
rd, which also seething cauldron of salacious mayhem
became a UK Top 30 hit. Following on HOUSE AND LAND rocks majestically. IF
from the equally eclectic The Night Siren 1 Across The Field THRILL JOCKEY Killer track: Sex Robot
and Beyond The Shrouded Horizon, his North Carolina
twenty-sixth solo album is a panoramic, duo Sarah Louise WHISKEY MYERS
proggy musical voyage, with the lush Henson and Sally 28 Whiskey Myers SNAKEFARM
symphonic rock he does so well (Beast Of Anne Morgan The gospel according
Our Time) but also twanging, harmony-rich perfected to Whiskey Myers is
60s pop (Hungry Years) and even blues/ ance of the
distilled to its finest
a bal
gospel (Underground Railroad). Hackett’s traditional and experimental on this proof yet on this Texas
coruscating guitar playing and inspired wondrous second album together. band’s fifth album,
vocals are central to the rich, orchestral Rooted in the drones and textures a magnificent
sound palette. His star has rarely shone of Appalachian folk and country, compendium of southern rock’n’roll
so brightly. GM a combination of spidery guitars, storytelling. ‘I was raised by wolves in the
Killer track: Those Golden Wings fiddle, killer harmonies and strange woods,’ Cody Cannon howls on one of
loops made for a thrilling experience. many kick-ass songs which articulate the
WHITESNAKE Killer track: Precious Jewels authentic cry of the rural American
31 Flesh and Blood FRONTIERS NORTH MISSISSIPPI heartland. ‘I need a bible, a gun and gasoline,’
2 ALLSTARS 27 Rewind, Replay, Rebound
he declares. Holy smoke! DS
Thirteen proved to be
a lucky number for
Killer track: Bury My Bones
David Coverdale’s
Up And Rolling NEW WEST
VOLBEAT
perennially priapic
KAIA KATER
gentleman rockers,
cracking the UK Top 10
for the first time in more than a decade 3 Grenades VERTIGO 2019 has been the year
SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS
with their thirteenth studio album. On of Peaky Blinders,
hard-riffing, trouser-bulging, guilty- TYLER CHILDERS something Volbeat
pleasure anthems like Shut Up & Kiss Me 4 Country Squire astutely plugged into
and Trouble Is Your Middle Name, Coverdale HICKMAN HOLLER/RCA with their seventh
albu
and new guitarist Joel Hoekstra pay self- m. From the kids
consciously retro homage to Whitesnake’s Whitesnake’s KELSEY WALDON in baker-boy caps on its cover to the VOLBEAT: ROSS HALFIN/PRESS
1980s glam-metal playboy heyday. SD David 5 White Noise / White Lines PB-referencing Cheapside Sloggers, Rewind,
Killer track: Hey You… You Make Me Rock Coverdale OH BOY/THIRTY TIGERS Replay, Rebound crackled with outlaw

28 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM