A hundred and eighty gigs so far this year hasn’t dimmed the
enthusiasm of Laurence Jones and his band.
Which is just as well, because that enthusiasm is infectious, and does a
lot to sustain their set.
Launching into action with ‘Got No Place To Go’, they
immediately demonstrate one of their strengths, with a chunky, funky riff that
folds in Roger Inniss’s bass and makes clear early on that drummer Phil Wilson
is now well and truly in the groove since joining a year or so ago. They keep up the good work with ‘Can’t Keep
Living Like This’, which features some interestingly twangy guitar in the
verse, a huge riff in the bridge, and a Hendrixy solo from Jones.
"I've told you Rog, you can have a bass solo in a minute!" |
Jones is a technically impressive guitarist, and he makes
good use of effects to add variety to his sound, as on the offbeat, twitchy
‘Something’s Changed’. He’s also capable
of mining a fruitful seam of funk – and why wouldn’t he, when he has the
not-so-secret weapon of Roger Inniss and his six-string bass at his disposal?
His latest album Take Me High hinted
at him going further in this direction, but it’s less in evidence than I
expected, which is a pity.
They add a shot of reggae to ‘Something’s Changed’ though,
morphing it into ‘I Shot The Sherriff’ as a prelude to more echoes of Clapton
with ‘Cocaine’. ‘Thunder In The Sky’
offers a slow blues epic, which shows off a good sense of space, and also
demonstrates that Jones’s voice has come on leaps and bounds over the last
couple of years.
There are a couple of good hooks too, on ‘I Will’ and ‘Live
It Up’, the latter featuring another novel, squelchy guitar effect. ‘Addicted To Your Love’ is a slow grind with
some howling guitar, and ‘What’s It Gonna Be’ closes the loop with another
chunky riff.
I like Laurence Jones and his band, but four albums in it’s
time for him to make a big stride forward.
He needs to push beyond the prosaic lyrics evident in a lot of his
songs, really connect with things emotionally, and bring that out in his
playing. Strangely, his set omits
tracks
that have that resonance about them, such as the struggle of ‘Down & Blue’
– which I’m sure has personal connotations – or the humour of ‘Stop Moving The
House’. But they encore strongly with
the R’n’B of ‘Every Day I Have The Blues’, with it’s mic-less singalong, and I
like ‘em. I’d just like to see what
Laurence and co can really do.
Johnny Boos does some finger pickin' |
Full credit to support band GT’s Boos Band for trying to
come up with material that doesn’t plough a predictable furrow. The punchy opener ‘Seven Questions’ is
followed up by the imaginative ‘High N Dry’, with its tempo changes and
shimmering passages. They get well and
truly ambitious with the epic feel of ‘Amsterdam’, which has an interesting up
tempo segment and atmospheric guitar from Johnny Boos, but begs the question
whether the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A more coherent attempt at doing something
adventurous is the set closer ‘What I’m Wishing’, with a powerful closing solo
from Boos. In between, ‘Letham City
Blues’ is gutsy, and ‘Real Born Winner’ dishes up some bright rhythm and blues. I look forward to seeing them add greater consistency to the variety.
No comments:
Post a Comment