Page 37 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

TOP 5 Beth Hart

PROG

stronger and more soulful with every THE BLACK KEYS
album, and her latest, War In My Mind, ALBUMS Rich Robinson, 12 Let's Rock
The Magpie
drills deep into the core of her renegade Salute EASY EYE SOUND/NONESUCH
California spirit and art. ‘I’ll be the sugar It’s likely that Dan
Words: Jo Kendall
rush in your veins,’ she sings on Bad Woman Auerbach and Patrick
Carney’s commercial
Blues, and is as good as her word on MAGMA
a succession of baroque testimonials and 1 Zëss SEVENTH peak is behind them.
dark, sweeping piano ballads. The lyrics A 38-minute, But Let’s Rock spoke of
on I Need A Hero (‘Here comes another storm, seven-part piece a glorified garage band
built around
seems like it’s always raining/Mostly in my head gleefully returning to first principles, as the
under the sheets/It’s where I’m always hiding a propulsive Ohio duo broke with the wafty
from my best intentions’) explode like two-chord swing, soundscapes of 2014’s Turn Blue, and
landmines. Incredible. DS featuring Morgan instead threw their arms around the
Killer track: Bad Woman Blues Ågren (Kaipa, Devin Townsend) on old ways of fuzz-box blues and ragged-
drums, and the Prague arsed, harmony-stacked soul. It felt like
BEAUX GRIS GRIS Philharmonic. Bandleader Christian a thrilling fresh start – and the stadium
13 & THE APOCALYPSE Vander might only be vocalising league be damned. HY
Love & Murder GROW VISION MUSIC here (and in French, not Kobaïan Killer Track: Eagle Birds
elegant, euphoric piece of art the 11 BAND The southern roots-
– shock!), but, mon dieu, what an
Although they are
TEDESCHI TRUCKS
best-known for their
Parisian stars’ have recorded in their
partnership in Well
Hung Heart, Greta
fiftieth year.
Signs FANTASY
Valenti and Robin
GONG
Davey’s bluesy bit on
BETH HART: GREG WATERMANN/PRESS; RICH ROBINSON: LAURENT CHANEZ/PRESS
the side Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse 2 The Universe Also Collapses rock band led by Susan
Tedeschi and Derek
felt like the main event this year. The tug- KSCOPE Trucks responded to the
of-war between the American’s bad-girl current political turmoil
and
holler and the Brit’s scholarly guitar CHARLIE CAWOOD a string of personal
stylings rubbed up sparks, and you suspect 3 Blurring Into Motion losses with an album of rare brilliance.
that Jagger/Richards would be happy to BAD ELEPHANT ‘There’s poison in the well…’ Tedeschi sings in
claim Don’t Let The Bastards Drag You Down Shame, a threshing riff which echoes the
as their own. But Love & Murder got IAMTHEMORNING Allmans’ Whipping Post. TTB’s keyboard
pleasingly weird, too: try the twisted 4 The Bell KSCOPE player Kofi Burbridge died on the day Signs
gypsy-jazz of Cyclone, a song as apocalyptic was released, and tracks such as The Ending
as the times in which it was born. HY THE HARE and When Will I Begin are freighted with
Killer Track: Don’t Let The Bastards Drag 5 AND HOOFE a deep, elegiac resonance. DS
You Down The Terror Of Melton SELF-RELEASED Killer track: Shame

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