Winter Songs - Halford

Provenance: It felt like everybody had some kind of yuletide album or another except for me. I tend to spend Christmas with my parents, who are well-stocked in this regard; this year the more shopworn 'classics' (I use the term advisedly) were sidelined in favour of festive traditional folk.

However, a few years back I was evidently feeling rather deficient in the seasonal spirit, resulting in me buying Halford's Winter Songs, thinking that some metallized Christmas carols would do the trick. I should state now that I normally find this kind of lark annoying; during a winter break in 2016 I was subjected to a Christmas tree in the town square of Manhattan, Kansas that pumped out seemingly unceasing shred-metal versions of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem', 'We Three Kings', et al. I would've happily slit the throat of any nearby reindeer by the time I was able to shuffle off for a well-earned Coors Light (the "World's Most Refreshing Beer").

That being said, my love of Judas Priest overrode my concerns and I made the purchase. I mean, how bad can a Halford album be? Crucible was fucking cool.

Review: I'm guessing that this is better than about 99% of Christmas albums, but that's because 99% of Christmas albums are unmitigated dross. You can't even get away with being hip and cool like Sia, because she did a Christmas album that's like an underdone goose stuffed with dried-up dog turds. In the service of equanimity I should also highlight that Winter Songs comes out of the traps like a three-legged greyhound with dysplasia. It's been a while since Rob's been able to hit those truly near-terrifying screams from his youth and yet he still seems obliged to give the ol' falsetto a bash on every release. Thusly 'Get Into The Spirit' features a vocal that, despite being triple-tracked to hide its deficiencies, still sounds like a poor parody of an actual Rob Halford performance.

But! Next we're onto a brace of traditional carols that have been given the metal treatment and - hallelujah! - these are cracking. 'We Three Kings' is much better than the version I heard in Kansas, and the relative rarity 'Oh Come O Come Emanuel' is an absolute rip-snorter. The carols on Winter Songs actually constitute, collectively, the best portion of the album. It's not as if Halford have done anything especially clever with the arrangements or twisted the lyrics around. Rather, they attack the songs with gusto, which is met with impassioned performances from Rob. Too often, Christmas albums sound like lazy cash-ins; to his credit, Rob Halford sounds like a man who genuinely enjoys the music. I would hazard a guess that he's a fine fellow to share a glass or two of eggnog with.

Now, I have long said that since Rob rejoined Judas Priest in 2003 they've had a knack for balladry. Whereas earlier Priest efforts were replete with vocal histrionics, the latter stuff has had to accommodate the timbre (and limitations) of a more mature voice. Happily, this still extraordinary voice has discovered a real feel for slower, stately material. In fact, I'd say that in this respect Rob has actually improved as a singer, imbuing such tracks as 'Angel' and 'Beginning Of The End' with palpable feeling. That magic is here again on the Sara Bareilles / Ingrid Michaelson track 'Winter Song'. Halford's version is a shivering, shimmering thing of understated beauty and genuinely capable of raising a few hairs.

Sure, there's the odd hokey track here and there - 'Christmas For Everyone', hello? - but overall Winter Songs is an admirable take on a deservedly maligned genre. Plus, it means that I don't feel compelled to buy any more Christmas albums. For goodness' sake, I've also got that one Jethro Tull album with 'Ring Out Solstice Bells', what more does one person need? 

Idol Songs - Billy Idol

Provenance: When I was in my mid-teens a girlfriend of mine asked me what I wanted for my birthday. "Oh, I don't know, maybe a Billy Idol 'best of' album?". Instead, she dumped me.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm stood in a rain-lashed field in Sweden. Billy Idol is finishing up onstage with a version of The Doors' 'LA Woman'. He has replaced Los Angeles with Malmo, despite being 130km away from the latter location. Hitherto in the performance he has treated us to the following:

a) An acoustic version of 'White Wedding'
b) The Allen Toussaint song 'Working In A Coal Mine'
c) A shitty autobiographical song that references 'Hot In The City'; this is further compounded by the fact that he doesn't go on to actually play 'Hot In The City'

It was one of the most depressingly awful experiences of my festival-going life. Nonetheless, I finally got my hands on this doozy - subtitled 11 of the Best - for two quid at a car boot sale in Eastbourne.

Review: On the 29 May 2016 Twitter user @TadKosciuszko had this to say: 'Mt. Rushmore of "punk" - Idol, Ghetto Blaster Guy from Star Trek IV, Adam Ant, & the guy that led the mutant biker gang in Weird Science'. Funny and true. Just as it maddens me that The Tubes are often classified as punk because they used the word in one of their song titles, it boggles my mind that anything Idol did as a solo artist can be remotely considered as belonging to the genre. 

As it so happened, both Idol and Ant were at the vanguard of the original London punk scene - but neither would make their name playing that music (though I should point out that Simon Reynolds does an excellent job at delineating how punk midwifed Ant's particular style in the superb Rip It Up And Start Again).

Despite retaining the more overt visual trappings of punk, it was Idol that moved further than Ant away from punk's initial art-school leanings. Who knows? Maybe the spiked-peroxide quiff and leather jackets acted as an affirmation to Idol, an aide memoir to himself that, beneath the poppy hooks, the expensive videos and the even more expensive nose candy, he was still a scrappy rabble rouser who dropped out of a Sussex University English degree in 1976. Certainly, in that sodden field in Scandinavia, he made great play (not all of it coherent) about how we all need to return to the roots - and rootsiness - of rock 'n' roll. Curious sloganeering for a man who made his name with a very airbrushed flash-metal sound, and who would later pioneer mixed media releases (yes, really) with his 1993 Cyberpunk album which came packaged with a 3.5" floppy disk.

But let us not judge Idol the man, let us speak of Idol the musician. Here are eleven, count 'em. Of the best. By his, or the record label's estimation, one presumes. Now, as much as I've been down on Idol thus far in this article, let me say this - by my reckoning, there are three tracks on here that are brilliant, and possibly qualify as masterpieces within the realm of pop. This troika of triumph is 'Rebel Yell', 'White Wedding' and, greatest of all, 'Flesh For Fantasy'. The first two rock hard and feature tasty guitar work by the underrated Steve Stevens, but have the kind of precision-tooled studio polish that sounds great on a transistor radio and a melodic sensibility so strong that they grapple your cerebral cortex into submission.

Time for another reference to an ex-girlfriend of mine! This time it's to go on record with an apology to Bianca. Back in the day I'd listen to Spree FM in her kitchen in Berlin, which would play 'Flesh For Fantasy' virtually every day (or so it seemed). Bianca made it known she liked the song; I greeted this opinion with the mockery I believed it deserved, but today I am a changed man and I have this to say: Bianca, if you're reading this, I am sorry - 'Flesh For Fantasy' is incredible, even if lyrically it's mostly gobbledegook. On this issue - and this issue alone - you were right, and I was wrong.

What of the other eight songs that comprise his 'best'? Well, as you can probably guess from my annoyance that Idol forswore 'Hot In The City' back in 2010, I really like that one. Same goes for the mellow, dreamy 'Eyes Without a Face'. These are tier two Billy Idol songs. Then you have the curios like 'To Be A Lover', which contains all the trappings of church-inflected soul - bluesy piano, call-and-response female backing singers, tambourines - but winds up sounding like an ersatz mechanised gospel fever-dream. There's also 'Dancing With Myself' - which was recorded with his previous band, Generation X, and is by far the most 'punk' thing on this collection - and 'Sweet Sixteen', a weird, glabrous, spacey drowning pool of synths and angst.

Pretty much everything else on here is pony. At the very least, it's entertaining crap. I don't skip the clunkers like 'Catch My Fall' or 'Don't Need a Gun' when I give Idol Songs a spin as at the very least they stand as testament to Idol's 'swing-and-a-miss' approach, one that was evident even during his commercial peak. For all his faults, missteps and periods of inactivity I'm a sucker for the leathery old charmer. I'd even take another chance with the live experience on the basis that I'd be treated to (at least) eleven of the best.*

*(I was trying to find a place to include a "mo', mo', mo'" gag but decided it would only cheapen this august and serious blog.)

Aquarium - Aqua

Provenance: I bought this off a kid in my class for fifty pence.

Review: At first glance seeing this nestled alongside genuine classics such as John Martyn's Solid Air, Carole King's Tapestry and Black Sabbath's eponymous debut might seem a bit rum but there you go. As much as I like to see a band like Faust assault my local social club with power tools I also enjoy a good melody, and it's tough to find an album more shamelessly pop than Aquarium.

I don't subscribe to the notion of a 'guilty pleasure' - it's either something you like or you don't. The idea that, within certain company, I'd have to accompany the revelation that I own an Aqua album with knowing winks and ironic snickers makes me want to throw up. In any case, I'd probably be happier spending an evening with a person who enthuses about ABBA or Frankie Goes To Hollywood than some mithering real-ale dimwit muttering into his (always his) beard about Bongo Fury.

Aquarium - twenty years old in 2017, uh huh - straddles a couple of eras. On the one hand, it's a product of snap-to-grid production techniques which means that happy accidents like the telephone ringing at the end of David Bowie's 'Life On Mars', the airplane that invades Led Zeppelin's 'Black Country Woman' or even the squeaking bass drum pedal at the beginning of Robin Trower's 'The Fool And Me' could never happen. On the other hand, the pre-shuffle Aquarium is sequenced like a proper album, eschewing the modern trend of front-loading with the singles. It also occupies a time just prior to the Great Compact Disc Bloat, meaning it clocks in at a brisk forty-one minutes. (Within two or three years it wasn't uncommon for bands to imagine that their fans wanted every half-thought studio jam or bit of inconsequential audio fluff, routinely pushing releases over the hour mark - and let's not even get started with 'hidden' tracks.)

Aqua were Lene Nystrom (vocals), Rene Dif ("vocals"), Soren Rasted (keyboards) and Claus Norreen (possibly the world's most under-employed guitarist) and during the late 1990s were undoubtedly the biggest thing to come out of Denmark since Lego thanks to the international hits 'Barbie Girl', 'Doctor Jones' and 'Turn Back Time', all present on this album. The odd acoustic flourish aside poor Claus seemed to do fuck all, whilst 'good time bald guy' Rene occupied a space somewhere in the realm of Flava Flav (which is a rung up from Bez (Happy Mondays) and Paul Rutherford (the aforementioned Frankie Goes To Hollywood), inasmuch as their contributions are sometimes audible). In fact, Rene does make telling interventions on a number of songs, but these rarely seem to fit in with the overall tone and often come across as peculiarly aggressive.

I really like Lene's singing. I think she's fantastic. And although she occupies a fairly high register on most of Aquarium she is able to demonstrate her depth and range on a couple of the slower numbers. Those aside, everything else is pure, Hi NRG-inspire bubblegum. If you're over the age of twenty-five and ventured into a sticky 'no jeans, no trainers' alcopop-pit you'll recognise the 130-135 bpm Eurobeat that seemed to infect every dance pop hit of the era. Am I getting a touch of the ol' nostalgias listening to this? Just a bloomin' bit!

What sets them apart from the pack is that Aqua had a keen sense of kook. An examination of the lyrical content of 'Barbie Girl' reveals an ambiguity that could be readily interpreted as either a satirical swipe or straight celebration of the values and aspirations represented by the world's most famous doll. 'My Oh My' begins with a whinnying horse and features the slightly odd Rene line "gotta steal from the rich when they don't know I'm coming" - a clear allusion to Robin Hood which has little to do with the rest of the song. It's as if Aqua took a wilfully stupid pick 'n' mix approach to a few tropes around Merrie Olde England and whacked them into a song, which works perfectly.

Not everything works - 'Heat Of The Night' is, alas, nothing to do with the racially-charged Sidney Poitier / Rod Steiger cop drama, instead having more in common thematically with Wham's 'Club Tropicana'; here, Rene does a 'Spanish' accent much like Barry Davies used to when commenting on the World Cup. The next song, 'Be A Man' is a milquetoast attempt at something like 'Eternal Flame', but it doesn't really matter because the next song is the utterly bonkers 'Lollipop (Candyman)' - featuring a great parenthetical subtitle, no? - which ups the tempo and showcases Rene's very best, worryingly intense, gibberish.

Alas, Aqua were so much of their time and it couldn't last. Their next album, Aquarius, did relatively well in Europe but pretty much sucked. By the time of Megalomania Aqua had tried to slough off their cartoonish image, with predictably risible results, and in the process ridding themselves of much of their hyperactive charm. Nevertheless, we'll always have this beautifully off-kilter testament to the joys of unabashed pop. Fifty pence well spent.

Bridge Of Sighs - Robin Trower

Provenance: Ah, the rowdy old days of the internet at the turn of the millennium. I was (just) getting into guitar, and my dad had come home from work with a suggestion from one of his colleagues; give a guy called Robin Trower a go.

Naturally I booted up the PC, opened Napster (the repository of all music back then, kids) and found a file called something like 'xXx2_Rolling_Stoned_0105xXx'. I knew that, unless it had been mislabelled or was just a bunch of white noise, if I left the download going overnight in a mere eight or nine hours I'd be listening to my first Robin Trower track.

To breakfast next morning, and I was in luck! Not only did the song match the title, but I had the whole thing bar the last twenty seconds. I could rule this a success. What a tune, too. Funky, soulful and spacey all at once; I spent no time delaying my trip to the local HMV.

Review: This is another collection I don't need to listen to in order to write about it, but will do so for the sheer pleasure of it.

Over the years, I've come to regard Bridge Of Sighs as a top ten all time album. There's simply nothing bad or even mediocre about it, at all. I've heard a lot of idiots talk shit about Trower being too derivative or a poor Hendrix imitation, and whilst the latter's influence is undoubtedly the most obvious in his playing, Trower is a sublime craftsman in his own right. You can call his style bluesy but he never seems to fall back on the hackey cliches of the more prosaic blooz-rockers. You could say he was stoner rock before the genre had been properly pinned down, but Bridge Of Sighs is neither lumpen nor plodding. The moods conjured up sometimes hint at space rock, but where Hawkwind clatter into deep space on the whoosh of their thrusters, Trower glides along on the Sea of Serenity.

If I could play guitar like one individual on this planet, it would be Robin Trower.

The difficulty I have with Robin Trower, and Bridge Of Sighs specifically, is that after I listen to it much else seems so prosaic, shackled to the earth, never able nor destined to take flight. The sheer ability to impose his will so fully upon his chosen instrument and coax all those weeping, howling, swirling sounds out of it is mystifying. Little tops the excitement I still feel when the first staccato notes of 'Day Of The Eagle' explode out of the speaker; to have that followed up by the stately, mournful title track is so indulgent as to be the aural equivalent of a lemon cheesecake, topped by a Black Forest gateau, topped with ice cream.

One aspect of his sound is that, although the guitars can seem thick or even sludgy, in fact what they play is almost always fragmentary, or at most arpeggiated. It's as if each song is a mosaic that Trower assembles from shards of electric guitar. Couple this approach to his signature style, namely masterful sustain and fluid legato picking, feed it all through some trippy effects and you have a the fundaments of a very singular sound that, when wrapped around the songs, can be a thing of wonder. I should also add that Trower's vocalist (and bassist) at the time, the late James Dewar, was one of rock's most underrated white soul voices. His performance on 'About To Begin' prickles the hairs on your skin.

I'm not going to talk about individual tracks too much here. Bridge Of Sighs is sensational and should be listened to front to back, but as that's less fashionable these days, here's one of the many, many highlights:



I count myself lucky to have seen Trower a few times live. The first of these was in Exeter with my then-girlfriend at the time, Sarah - or rather, then ex-girlfriend, as we had broken up not long beforehand due to my terrible behaviour. Nevertheless, I had tickets and for reasons that still remain a mystery, Sarah consented to go with me. Not only was Trower magical but Sarah also took me back that evening (which I absolutely didn't deserve), and we would spend the rest of university and some time beyond together.

We've since gone separate ways but I still remember Sarah with great fondness. She's a brilliant person, with a cool yoga business, and not only gives classes in the Bath area but also organises retreats in some fabulous locations. As someone who has never tried yoga I can't comment on Sarah as an instructor, but the tolerance and forbearance required to put up with me for such a long time bespeaks someone with the patience of a saint. In any case, it's something Sarah has an enduring passion for, so I am adamantine in my certainty that she's ace.

We all graft our own stories and meanings to the things in life that affect us in a profound way - be it music, literature, places or people - and so it goes with this. The wistful, foreboding, luminous, beautiful Bridge Of Sighs has for me become inextricably bound to my time with Sarah. I wouldn't wish it any other way.

High On The Hog - Black Oak Arkansas

Provenance: I saw these chaps at Sweden Rock Festival one year and had a fine time. Online consensus seemed to suggest that this was a good album for the beginner, so here I am, listening to High On The Hog.

Review: God bless Black Oak Arkansas. They've been around since protozoa first slimed their way onto the primordial beaches of Pangaea, around fifty or so people have passed through their ranks, the rhythm guitarist has two, separate, unrelated nicknames and the lead singer doubles up on the washboard. On that basis alone I am a fan of Black Oak Arkansas. If only they did that cool double drumming thing that .38 Special had going on we might be talking about the world's greatest band.

Alas, they didn't, but a pre Ozzy Osbourne / Whitesnake / born-again Christianity Tommy Aldridge can be found thumping the tubs on this release, though it is unrecorded as to how many nicknames he earned whilst serving his time in 'the Oak'. All kidding aside, this is a really fun slice of southern rock; looser than Skynyrd, less virtuosic than the Allmans, rootsier than Molly Hatchet or Blackfoot, Black Oak Arkansas had a more overt country music influence than many in their genre. What sets them apart is frontman Jim 'Dandy' Mangrum, he of the washboard and a voice that wavers between hillbilly rasp and Beefheartian growl. A curious guy, he's part good ol' boy, part flower child, the self-proclaimed blueprint for David Lee Roth with a penchant for fast living that saw him suffer his first heart attack around age 30.

What I like about High On The Hog is that it's a bit of a grab-bag, with each song inhabiting its own little patch of dirt somewhere below the Mason-Dixon. So 'Swimmin' In Quicksand' has an infectious, funky Memphis groove, 'Happy Hooker' is a fairly straight blues (with a, shall we say, less than progressive lyric?), 'Moonshine Sonata' is a mellifluous instrumental in the vein of the aforementioned Allman Brothers Band and both 'Back To The Land' and 'High 'N' Dry' are down-home, deep-fried, back-porch country; the latter is especially, and unexpectedly, gorgeous.

Where High On The Hog really excels, however, is when it mines a seam of heavy redneck psych that is both slightly unsettling and quite unique. Thus 'Red Hot Lovin'' (these guys love a contraction) 'Why Shouldn't I Smile' and 'Mad Man' all have a faintly ominous atmosphere about them which really works to their advantage in the context of the rest of the album, which is all rather upbeat and rambunctious. Around the same time British bands like Atomic Rooster, Edgar Broughton Band and the Groundhogs were all recording albums swirling with unease and paranoia, so it's interesting to hear these moods given a southern rock twist.

Saying that, for me the masterpiece on the album is the rollicking boogie stomp of 'Jim Dandy', featuring guest vocals from the late, leather-lunged singer Ruby Starr. Doesn't it look like everyone's having the best time?



Given the prodigious turnover of personnel, just by being in the same field as the band there's a good chance that I'm actually a member of Black Oak Arkansas right now. Frankly, if I got to play 'Jim Dandy' and 'Uncle Lijah' (from their first album) and hang out with 'Risky' Rickie 'Ricochet' Reynolds every night, I wouldn't mind one bit. Great album cover, by the way. Top entertainment.

St Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley

Provenance: I was just finishing up my undergraduate degree when 'Crazy' came out and swept all before it. Even if 'Smily Faces' wasn't quite as infectious as its predecessor, the duo of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green appeared poised to go on to do big things.

Gnarls Barkley cultivated an image that was both playful and hip, with enough sonic invention to offset accusations of novelty invited by their penchant for fancy dress. It was also hard to categorise their sound - was it soul, funk, electronica or an unholy fusion of the lot? Whatever, I was suckered in. I remember my friend Darryl being quite tickled at my pride in buying music by a contemporary artist.

I haven't played this album for quite some time, so I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

Review: Well, that was underwhelming.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself, to be honest. Yes, I was young and dumb, I did stupid, crazy stuff at university like subediting the student newspaper and dressing up like Paul Stanley. I'm not proud. But for all my faults and foibles, I thought I had a good ear. Yes, I supposed, there are plenty of pop songs able to get the foot tapping, but I felt I was able to see through the cheap tricks of mere earworms. Well, damn me! Damn me to hell! Because I heard 'Crazy' and thought I was taking a peek behind the veil and observing the fucking future.

In mitigation, I wasn't the only one. Reviewers fell over themselves to acclaim St Elsewhere as a work of rare genius. And hey, maybe by the standards of 2006 it was pretty good. But it wasn't great.

Let's get one item out of the way - 'Crazy' is still a tune. Green's vocals glide over the track's queasy electro-thrum and the chorus has the cavernous majesty of full-bore Isaac Hayes. Sometimes there are albums where the lead single is clearly not the best of the bunch. St Elsewhere isn't one of those albums.

Which isn't to say there aren't glimpses of brilliance elsewhere. Kicking off, 'Go Go Gadget Gospel' takes the listener to church via Lost In Space and later on the Willie Dixon-quoting Violent Femmes alt-rocker 'Gone Daddy Gone' is transformed into a glitchy, shifty laser-zap of unrefined bliss. 'Smiley Faces' was, ah, the follow-up single to 'Crazy'.

Otherwise, everything else sounds flat and dated. I don't know if 'Who Cares?' sounded taut and cool back in the day but now it just feels sclerotic. Almost the entire second half of the album seems hastily conceived and sketched out without ever being finished. 'The Boogie Monster', 'Feng Shui', 'Transformer' and 'Necromancer' go through the motions. What could be - and possibly have been - described generously as 'flourishes' of Morricone, Wu-Tang Clan and the Isley Brothers now sound like the bored daubings of a distracted dilettante. Nothing in the lollop to the finish line leaps out of the speakers or surprises the listener. The little quavering Moog is exactly where you imagine a little quavering Moog would go. This seems to jar with Danger Mouse's reputation as a multiple Grammy-nominated superstar producer, but then you recall that he played midwife to both U2's Songs of Innocence and Red Hot Chili Peppers' The Getaway.

Also, Cee-Lo Green comes across as a particularly unlikeable individual, so I don't give a shit, St Elsewhere is mostly dross.

A Boy From Tupelo - Elvis Presley

Provenance: I've been to Graceland, you know. It's the roughly seven-year anniversary of the road trip I took around the Deep South of the USA, during which I met the person who I would later go on to marry.

That journey proved to be the catalyst for me to fall in love with a whole bunch of things, aside from another human being. There's New Orleans, and fried catfish, zydeco and the Great Smoky Mountains, the Arkansas State Fair and Twelve Bones BBQ, small town hospitality and the alluvial expanse of Mississippi's Delta Region. I know, I've reeled off a bunch of cliches - and I stand by them all. For a dumb, wide-eyed young'un from Bournemouth, it was something the hell else.

Rather unexpectedly, I also found myself falling in love with a certain Elvis Aaron Presley. I'm driving down the highway in my rental, destination Memphis. I want to be the biggest tourist around, see Beale Street and the Stax Museum and, of course, take a pipe at Graceland. I've got a passenger with me, a large raw-boned chap called Tommy, a former Aussie Rules player I picked up in Nashville. He's here on business, but taking some time out to travel a bit. About twenty miles out of Memphis and fiddling with the satellite radio I get an Elvis station - live from Graceland - on Sirius XM. (Closer into town and I'm on the newly-christened Isaac Hayes Boulevard, which is nice because it wasn't named after a racist.) W head south toward the airport, hang a right and we're almost there.

Graceland isn't a place for the fainthearted. It's a monument to both a great artist and to folly. It is excessive, tacky, a glittery testimony of all that is crass. To stumble around this bejewelled carbuncle is almost nausea-inducing, and one has to consciously remind oneself that actual human beings dwelt in this funfair house of mirrors. And you think, yes, the star of such cinematic triumphs as Clambake and It Happened at the World's Fair would live in such a place. Yet on the ride in, you heard something pulsing on the radio, something vital...

We got into Graceland fairly late, and as Tommy and I were leaving we noticed trestle tables being set up and barbecues being lit. So we decided to do what any two folk in our position would do - don our suits (don't ask why I packed one, but a great call), hustled our way into the function and spent the evening partying on the verandah, food and drink courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Tourism. We even witnessed what must've been the most high-pressure gig for an Elvis impersonator to perform. Yet even in that pale imitation, there's a whisper of something great...

Review: This handsome three-CD (and book) box-set contains every recording of Elvis spanning the period 1953-55, including service acetates, radio performances, studio takes and singles. I'm only reviewing disc one, containing the acetates, the RCA masters and those immortal Sun masters that cemented Elvis' early reputation.

Nick Tosches is a man who can spin a yarn, the kind of guy whom I imagine considers the gospel truth to be a minor inconvenience when there's a good story to be told. His biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire, might be based in part on speculation and hearsay but it's also scintillating. Similarly, there's some tall tales told in Country: the Twisted Roots of Rock 'n' Roll but amidst the mythologising there's some important history on the genealogy of American country music (spoiler: it's all British, and often very old). The book also takes a stand for white hillbilly music's influence in the formation of rock 'n' roll; if not a wholly equal partner with black rhythm 'n' blues, Tosches nevertheless states a strong case - citing plenty of evidence - to suggest that a) there's a clear and obvious country ancestry to rock 'n' roll that's deeper than white performers appropriating black musical forms and b) that blues and country music were cross-pollinating each other for decades anyway. All this is worth holding in mind with regards to A Boy From Tupelo.

From the collection of early acetates you can hear why Sam Phillips initially didn't think he had much on his hands. In a restrained, slightly quavery voice Elvis sings a few torch songs accompanied by his own rudimentary guitar playing. Nothing here for Tosches, or anybody else, to write home about. Even the first couple of Sun masters are on the soporific side. And then, all of a sudden - magic, pure magic, as rockabilly bursts forth from the speakers in full colour. Elvis, along with guitarist Scotty Moore and stand-up bass player Bill Black, tear into Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup's 'That's All Right' with a wild assurance. Gone is the thin reticence that defines Elvis' sophomore efforts; instead, he meets the percussive thump of Black's bass with a swaggering, swooning brilliance. If ever a recording sounded white hot it's this bad boy, people, it's this one.

There's so, so much more to come; Bill Monroe's waltz 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' whipped up into a 4/4 country-blues; the supreme cover of Roy Brown's jump blues 'Good Rockin' Tonight'; a crackling 'I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine'; and possibly Elvis' most potent two and a half minutes ever committed to wax, his cover of Junior Parker's 'Mystery Train' (Scotty Moore is sublime on this cut). Even here, in this formative (and utterly electric) period, Tosches was able to muster up a moue of disappointment; he pinpoints the false start of 'Milkcow Blues Boogie' ("hold it fellas, that don't move me - let's get real, real gone for a change") as the moment Elvis first demonstrates his own awareness as a commercial performer, effecting a compromise that would forever taint the rest of his artistry. Well, it's an interpretation, and from a man who certainly knows his onions.

Given the technological and stylistic(?) advances(?) that have been made since Elvis started stirring things up in a small room in Memphis it can, at times, be hard to see past this compilation as a collection of historical curios. Certainly, for ears attuned to popular music created a bit later - say, from The Beatles onwards - it can sound a bit primitive. I recall a conversation with a friend where he spoke approvingly of rockabilly revivalist fashion but said he couldn't fully dig the whole package because of the limited sonic palette the music drew from. I grok. I'd flip that around and say that Elvis, and a whole bunch of contemporaries (and near contemporaries) coupled simple music to simple instrumentation and created some of the most exciting and life-affirming music of the last century. Sinuous, dangerous, slinky, sexy, sweaty, belligerent and beguiling - that first flush of rock 'n' roll was where it was at, folks. Let's get real, real gone, for a change.

Under The Savage Sky - Barrence Whitfield & The Savages

Provenance: I heard a track from this album, 'The Claw', on a sampler CD from Classic Rock magazine. It really stood out from the crowd, and I'd never heard of Barrence Whitfield nor his troupe of Savages, so decided to take a punt. I am well aware of the 'one good song on an otherwise shit album' issue, and indeed, have fallen victim to that particular pitfall myself before now.

Review: Wow, this is a lot of fun! A no-frills garage rock band fronted by a soulful blues shouter, packing twelve songs into 35 minutes, ensuring nothing outstays its welcome.

Bostonian Barrence Whitfield (real name: Barry White) is now in his 60s but you would've thought that a record this lusty and vital was made by someone half his age. Make no mistake though - this ain't snotty kid music, as is clear from 'I'm A Full Grown Man', which carries on the ripe tradition of grown-ass braggadocio pioneered by the likes of Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. This is tough, muscular R&B with a punk edge, delivered with the same kind of assuredness and command exhibited by the great soul stirrers of yore.

And 'The Claw'? Check it out:



I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for that diamond-edged guitar sound and a skronkin' ol Bobby Keys saxophone. It's there on 'Rock 'N' Roll Baby' too, sounding every bit as joyful and demented as the sax on 'Blue Moon'. (The saxophone is the most maligned instrument in rock music - I think I've said it before, but I'll say it until I'm as blue in the face as the aforementioned titular astronomical body; used rightly, whether slinking away sinuously in Steely Dan's 'Doctor Wu' or covering the first row in spit, as in Frankie Lymon and the Teenager's 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love?', it's devastating.)

I'm going to make a criticism, and then proceed to dismiss my own qualm immediately. The criticism? Under The Savage Sky feels as familiar as Arsenal labouring against a team in the bottom three. The dismissal? Who gives a fuck when it's this fun? 'The Wolf Pack' is, as one can deduce before even hearing a solitary note, a tribute to Howlin' Wolf, which in theory could be terrible. However, when the rollicking Hubert Sumlin riff (doubled on saxophone) is met by Whitfield's dead ringer Chester Burnett yodel, it's impossible not to crack a grin.

That's the deal with this unholy collection; every time you detect a hint of The Hives, or a soupçon of Wilson Pickett - perhaps a seasoning of The Seeds, or a suggestion of Sam & Dave - it's like a reward for digging all this sweet ass music, mingled with the reassurance that someone else is still out there, sweating and hollering and keeping the flame alive. About the only time that this magpie attitude towards appropriation oversteps the mark, I think, is on 'Angry Hands', which has a guitar motif that is a near identical twin to that on Alice Cooper's 'I'm Eighteen'.

There's not much left to say. If you like catchy, rough-edged R&B, Under The Savage Sky is the bad boy for you. I haven't investigated any further back just yet (this album came out in 2015) but I get the impression that I won't be disappointed. By the same token, I bet these guys absolutely bring it in a live setting. You can almost see the steam coming off this platter and it's a studio cut, good grief. Just imagine. Just imagine.   

(Oh yeah, I've got one quibble with that Diffuser list I linked to in my first paragraph: Len's 'Steal My Sunshine' always was, and ever shall be, an unmitigated pile of crap.)

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols - The Sex Pistols

Provenance: I'm no punk, believe you me, but this is as canonical as it gets. Got this in an independent record store in Bournemouth that was by the town centre bus stops. The guy who worked there absolutely loathed me for liking bands wot did guitar solos.

Review: You've got to be shitting me, right? This ain't punk.

To clarify - formally, Never Mind the Bollocks... is closer to some of the classic rock and power pop of the era than it is to its genre contemporaries. Trying to speak intelligently about punk as either an aesthetic or an attitude is difficult, because it often depends where and when you're talking about.

But if you associate punk with a lo-fi sound, an amateur ethos and a prickle of danger, you would not be thinking about the Sex Pistols. This album is every bit as big, bright and chunky as any of the classic rock bands supposedly so derided by the young pups of punk. Never Mind the Bollocks... is also a wonderful bit of grave-robbing, as practically every guitar lick is copped from the golden age of rock 'n' roll. That's not just me either - goddamn Chuck Berry could hear it too. Hell, for a gaggle of snotty upstarts they certainly do like their interpolating guitar breaks, as much as any blooz rock band. The one element that does stand out from the crowd is Johnny Rotten's sneering alveolar trill, but even then, is it any weirder than, say, Family's Roger Chapman?

And yeah, one other thing - the songs are fucking brilliant.

At the end of the day, who gives a monkeys if the Sex Pistols were ultimately resurrection boys who added a smear of mucus to their retrograde rockin'? There are still real, visceral thrills to be had; the blathering about going under the Berlin Wall on 'Holidays In The Sun', the sand-blast nastiness of 'Bodies' and that opening couplet of 'God Save The Queen' are all absolutely spot on. I should probably acknowledge that, writing in 2017, I've become somewhat inured to the 'Sex Pistols as shockmasters' narrative, especially as every blessed documentary about British pop music in the 1970s is obliged to include a transition depicting the dinosaurs of prog (scene: Peter Gabriel dressed as a flower) being swept away (music: opening bars of 'Pretty Vacant') by the rising tide of punk (scene: it's only the bloody Sex Pistols!). Yawn.

The truth is, Never Mind the Bollocks... is little more than an update of a structure and sound that was popular twenty years before its release (rock 'n' roll, baby), and one could make the argument that its simple chord progressions and cavernous drum sound are the legacy of a genre - glam rock - that had its heyday only a few years prior. If you sped up the stomp of, say, Slade, Gary Glitter or Mud, would it sound so different to what the Pistols were selling? To these jaded ol' ears, the most 'punk' song on the album is 'Sub-Mission', if only because it wouldn't be out of place on Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power. 

The Sex Pistols were a great band, who represented a mood, a time and a moment that was bigger than they were. Ultimately, the music didn't go anywhere daring, but nor did it have to. It was still recognisably loud, spirited and disruptive, and if not revolutionary then certainly revanchist when it came to rock 'n' roll reclaiming the mantle of rebellion. And besides, even if I were not privy to even a semi-quaver of their music, I would love them anyway purely on the basis of their interview with Bill Grundy. Also, there's a good chance that had the Sex Pistols not existed we wouldn't have been treated to Sloppy Seconds and that, frankly, is an intolerable state of affairs.

Damnation - Opeth

Provenance: I'm just back from a trip to Romania to attend the marriage of my old friend Joe to the lovely Elena. Joe's one of a group of guys who I've all known since the age of 11, and gradually became pals through a shared love of music. At one time or another we've all played with each other's bands and to this day remain tight as a group of people. It's really rather wonderful.

As is customary for any group that bond over music, recommendations fly back and forth, and one I was happy to catch was Opeth. So now, as I reflect upon the sumptuary and sublimity of the Carpathian landscape (Transylvania is a beautiful place), lately surroundings, it seems fitting that my first review upon returning home is one of Opeth's most dreamlike and ethereal collections to date.

Review: Well, I've already given the game away by labelling Damnation 'dreamlike' and 'ethereal'. Let me begin by saying that once upon a time, these would not be words readily associated with Opeth. The band - which continues to be led by the multi-talented Mikael Akerfeldt - began life as a progressive death metal outfit. However, since their 1995 debut Orchid, Akerfeldt has gradually allowed his love of classic prog rock to shine through, with 2003's Damnation representing a culmination of sorts; it was both the most nakedly prog album Opeth had put out to date, and also their most mellow.

Gone, then, are the death growls of pure death metal; in their stead is a stately, sorrowful singing akin to that John Wetton contributed to King Crimson's Red. The King Crimson comparisons don't end there, either; again, Red is invoked with some of the guitar tones and the liberal use of Mellotron to produce the very particular note of mournful foreboding that characterises the album. Which is not to say that Damnation is some kind of sequel to Red; it is perhaps unsurprising that Porcupine Tree also spring to mind, given that Steven Wilson co-produces this album.

However, if it never quite reaches the levels of tension or intensity of Red (and let's face it, what does?), Damnation is very much a collection of uneasy moods, thanks to tricksy minor-key arrangements coupled with drumming that is itchy and imaginative, pulling the seams out of the music, both establishing and deleting a groove at the same time. There are songs here too; by which I mean Opeth write strong melodies throughout, twining them sinuously around the skeletal instrumentation.

It's about this time I feel I should digress a little, and state for the record that I'm fucking sick of music publications that act in amazement when unabashedly progressive bands can write a goddamn tune. From Yes to Caravan, Jethro Tull to Genesis, Steve Hillage to Kevin Ayers, prog has been chokka with superlatively hummable music, some of which just happens to be in 13/8. Of course, there are artists in the genre who chose to create more impressionistic music, or to privilege virtuosity over what one might describe as a certain pop sensibility, but prog has earned an undeserved reputation for masturbatory excess and self-indulgence. If we're talking jam bands - well, now you're onto something, brother...

There's precious little fat on Damnation. At times it can feel like a very quiet album, with a spectral piano refrain picked out, or a shivering, chiming guitar figures ringing out over a sparse, empty landscape of sound. It's not a stretch to say that some of this is utterly spellbinding - and when the Mellotron kicks in, one of the few full-bodied instruments in the mix, the effect is at once both startling and thrilling. The guitar work is woozy and beguiling, natural and harmonic minor scales lulling the listener into that weird, heavy-lidded moment between wakefulness and sleep. The last track, 'Weakness', signs off on the most hesitant and tentative note struck on the entirety of Damnation, bringing to a close an album that feels like it was conjured entirely of gauze and ghosts and fog.