Quickies - Malone Sibun, Naked Gypsy Queens, and Ritchie Dave Porter & Debra Susan

On your marks and get set folks, for a quick sprint through a selection of two current EPs and a single.
 
Malone Sibun – Ashes To Dust EP

It’s two years since the duo of Marcus Malone and Innes Sibun released their first album Come Together, and now they’re back with a four-song EP knocking out more of their earthy brand of blues-rock.
‘Makin’ It’ opens up with a rat-a-tat drum intro, setting up a shuffling rhythm to go with a booty-shaking bass groove from the ubiquitous Roger Inniss, rocking organ, and bright and bopping

Malone and Sibun scan the horizon for that confounded bridge

rhythm guitar.  All of which is the platform not just for Malone’s trademark sassy’n’soulful vocal, but for some yowling, FX-heavy guitar breaks from (I assume) Sibun.
‘Ashes To Dust’ itself features a nagging, stuck-needle riff combined with more eye-popping guitar licks around the verse.  It’s the precursor to a slower, grander chorus draped in swathes of organ from Moz Gamble, while Malone goes for an epically framed romantic lyric, all “winds of change,” “the future is burning stars,” and, of course, “ashes to dust”.
Their take on Willie Dixon’s ‘Evil’ doesn’t carry Howlin’ Wolf’s air of lurking menace, but it’s still a rip-snorting affair built on clattering drums and a Zeppish stop-start stairway of a riff, while Malone agonises about relationship devilry.  Then they close the book with the yearning, plangent ‘Restless Heart’.  Here we have a rootsy, folk-soul-blues type tune featuring rolling and rippling Dobro, over long notes of chapel-like organ, with sensitive, sometimes harmonised vocals on the top.  It’s a second cousin to the acoustic sections of ‘Taste Of Your Love’, from their debut album, but worth repeated listening in its own right.
Ashes To Dust is a strong and focused appetiser from Malone Sibun.  Bring on the next main course.
 
Ashes To Dust is out now on Redline Records, and can be ordered here.
 
 
Naked Gypsy Queens – Georgiana EP
 
Naked Gypsy Queens may be from Tennessee, but don’t go expecting them to sound all country-ish so-called Southern rock, no siree.  Okay, the closing track of the five here, ‘If Your Name Is New York (Then Mine Is Amsterdam)’ may have some hints of the Black Crowes, but that’s it – and I’ll get back to that curiously titled outing, inspired by a line in the Scorsese movie Gangs Of New York, in due course.
What we have here is modern classic rock, if you like, derived from sweating over plenty of the old school variety.  Opener ‘Georgiana’ sets out their stall with the twin guitar combination of

Naked Gypsy Queens, thankfully fully dressed

Pic by Juan Ibanez

Cade Pickering and Chris Attigliato, and if the latter’s voice isn’t quite as throat-shredding as Steven Tyler, it’s heading that way.  It rolls in with grinding slide guitar and ringing rhythm chords, rolling over crashing drums from Landon Herring, before breaking out into a turbo-charged riffing bridge halfway through its two-and-a-half-minute sojourn.  The riff on the following ‘Down To The Devil’ comes over like an illegitimate descendant of ‘Stormbringer’, while Attigliato rattles out the lyrics in teeth-chattering fashion.  The old-fashioned phrase that springs to mind is “Let’s rawk!”
‘Strawberry Blonde #24’ kicks off with gritty guitar over a thudding beat, before they switch things up into a big, ringing refrain around the repeated line “She’s gonna kill you dead”.  (Like, there’s another outcome possible?)  Then they cool their jets to usher in a scratchy, serrated-edge guitar solo that eventually achieves lift-off and meanders back to that bang-your head riff.  ‘Wolves’ opens up slower, with doomy drums’n’bass from Herring and Bo Howard, before getting into a twitchy groove powered by resonant guitar chords.  Attigliato’s vocals are at their most rasping here, but with a delivery that also leans, Chili Pepperishly and ear-catchingly, towards Anthony Kiedis.  Oh yeah, and there’s some atmospheric, high-wire guitar soloing too.
And then there’s the aforementioned ‘If Your Name Is New York’ thing to close.  As previously stated, there are some echoes of the Robinson bruvvers in its melodic, evocative acoustic opening, but then that Kiedis-esque vocal phrasing kicks in again to produce something more distinctive.  And speaking of distinctive, those big, ringing guitar chords turn up again as something of a trademark, before a Page-like guitar break beats a path to the grandissimo motif of the outro.
Fans of Tyler Bryant and his gang will probably dig the Gypsy Queen sound, but I don't need that comparison to like 'em.  Georgiana is a mucho impressive calling card.
 
Georgiana is released by Mascot Label Group/Mascot Records on 11 February, and can be ordered here.

 
Ritchie Dave Porter & Debra Susan – 'Sugar And Spice'
 
‘Sugar And Spice’ is the latest in a string of singles from Birmingham blues guitar stalwart Ritchie Dave Porter and vocalist Debra Susan, and Porter certainly gets it darting off its starting blocks with some meaty and life-in-the-fast-lane-intricate riffing.  Susan’s rather girlish vocals aren’t really my thang, but the double-tracking and reverb on the chorus an introduces an interesting Sixties vibe.  Porter catches the ear again with some tasty guitar work, well complemented by his own assertive, rumbling bass.  But overall the mix feels a bit off, with the drums pushed too far back.  There are good things going on in there, but some work is needed to make them gel more definitively.
 
‘Sugar And Spice’ is out now on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify.

Malone Sibun - Come Together

It’s easy to tag Malone Sibun as a blues rock outfit, combining as it does the talents of Detroit-born singer and guitarist Marcus Malone, who has released a handful of albums here in Britain, and guitarist Innes Sibun, who has previously worked with Robert Plant and Sari Schorr alongside his solo career.  It’s a handy enough label for what they do, but Come Together, their first album working together, demonstrates that they’re not one-trick ponies - even if the psychedelic sleeve, featuring the two of them looking like they've been jabbed with cattle prods, is a bit of a decoy.

Malone and Sibun - not the psychedelic cover pic

Songs like ‘Let Me Love You’ and ‘Lovelight’ certainly fit the blues rock archetype.  ‘Let Me Love You’ opens up with a gritty, Zep-esque somersaulting riff, to which Sibun adds filigrees of slide guitar before it settles into the kind of territory that’s familiar from Malone’s earlier work.  Again, it’s easy to compare his vocal style with Paul Rodgers, but the cap fits as one listens to this, while Sibun makes his presence felt with a needle-sharp solo.  And yes, there’s something vaguely Whitesnake-ish about the vibe of  ‘Lovelight’, with its ripped out, ruff’n’tuff chords and catchy chorus complemented by smatterings of lead guitar, before a key change triggers a good solo from Sibun, and they take it down for the bridge before adding a guitar harmony segment for good measure.

The slow blues box is ticked by ‘So Tired Of Living’, a Sibun composition on which Malone comes over all Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland while his partner adds guitar licks over simple organ colourings from Stevie Watts, and shows bags of feeling on his solo, when he stretches things out and leaves plenty of space, though at times he does have a tendency to go to the other extreme with flurries of unnecessary notes.  And there’s even a hint of talking blues about ‘Rabbit Hole’, a slight but fun affair with a shuffling rhythm laid down by Malone’s long-time drummer Chris Nugent, more slide guitar from Sibun, and a rollicking bridge and solo.

But Malone and Sibun also like to veer into more soulful stylings.  ‘She’s My Girl’ may rock, with big chords and squealing Sibun slide, but at heart it’s a booty-shaking Sixties soul concoction with a “where have I heard it before” chorus that morphs into an irresistible “ooh, ooh, ooh-la-la” middle eight.   Meanwhile both ‘I Want You Back’ and the closing ‘Everyday’s A Miracle’ are relaxed and sun-kissed offerings, the former with Philly-sounding backing

Partners in crime getting down

vocals – but thankfully no syrupy Philly strings – and the latter with an optimistic lyric that’s straight out of the

Malone playbook, and a spot on solo from Sibun that glides over a key change.

There’s more good stuff too, starting with the opening 'Come Together' with its tough, stop-start riff and a Morse Code-like solo from Sibun, though I’m less convinced by its rather strained backing vocals.  It lays down a marker with its great sound though, bringing out booming drums from Nugent and grooving bass from Roger Inniss.  ‘Taste Of Your Love’ is reprised from Malone’s 2007 album Hurricane, and while I might have picked others from his back catalogue, provides some stylistic balance with its acoustic guitar opening reminiscent of Whitesnake’s ‘Ain’t Gonna Cry No More Today’ and patient, sometimes double-tracked vocals, before revving up and kicking ass from the bridge onwards.  And ‘Jodie’ is a rattling blast of roll, with honky tonk piano from Watts in the background and a scrabbling Sibun solo over a great bass groove from Inniss.

Ultimately I reckon Come Together is one killer song short of really knocking it out of the park, but that’s a compliment really – a sense that the best may still be to come once the Malone and Sibun partnership has matured.  But their first outing still confirms that these are blues rockers who have plenty of musical clubs in their bag, and who know how to swing ‘em.

Come Together is released by Redline Music on 31 January 2020.