“I
come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” said Mark Anthony, according to ol’
Bill Shakespeare. Well, I’m not here to
bury Black Country Communion, but I do question the torrent of rave reviews BCCIV has been getting.
Cards
on the table, I’m in that weird minority who may have some doubts about Joe
Bonamassa, but still think he does some good stuff. More to the point, I’ve
been resistant to the charms of Glenn Hughes and his much vaunted voice since
way back when, and last year’s Resonate
album did absolutely nothing to change my mind.
Hughes’
vocals represent one of my key reservations about the album. He has a good
voice when he’s in his middle register and not pushing the envelope, but for an avowed fan of Stevie Wonder he can indulge in some godawful warbling when he lets rip. ‘The Crow’ is a case in point, with Hughes
going out to lunch over a wall of sound centred on a stuttering riff,
detracting from a good bass showcase that leads into a swelling
organ solo and a brief but high voltage offering from Bonamassa. All in all it could add up to something
impressive – if only Glenn Hughes would cool his damn jets. And by the same token his diction is
increasingly bad on ‘The Cove’, swallowing words in all too typical fashion,
though the music, along with those phrases that do emerge – “alone in the
silence”, “out on the ledge”, “in the darkness” etc – are enough to evoke a
dramatic atmosphere.
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Glenn Hughes opens his gob. Joe Bonamassa closes his.
Photo by Christie Goodwin
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‘Wanderlust’
is a more positive showing, suggestive of late period Rainbow, with good guitar
riffs and interplay with the keys during JB’s solo, while Hughes listens to his
better angels. A bit less Sturm und Drang
in the drum sound would be welcome though. And the closing ‘When The Morning
Comes’ is also nicely downbeat, with rippling guitar lines, more restrained
drums, and injections of piano, while the bridge features bursts of organ over
taut guitar chords. At nearly 8 minutes
it’s overlong, with an unnecessary “big finish”, but at least there’s some
nuance along the way.
For
me though, the best thing here is ‘The Last Song For My Resting Place’. Tellingly, it features patient vocals from
Joe Bonamassa. At nearly 8 minutes, it’s
top quality throughout, featuring a mandolin intro and fiddle breaks, and it
has an epic quality making good use of quiet and loud passages. Recalling songs
like ‘Last Matador Of Bayonne’ and ‘Black Lung Heartache’, it’s the sort of
thing Bonamassa does really well, with or without the bone-crunching power
chords augmenting his tasteful solo.
Too
often though, BCCIV is like being on
the wrong end of an artillery barrage in support of an assault by the Screaming
Eagles, and producer Kevin Shirley has to take some responsibility for failing
to tame the sonic excess. Great heavy rock isn’t solely about being loud, and too often the imagination evident on BCCIV is overpowered. It's an okay album, but to these ears it sure as hell isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be.
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