It's a relatively mellow music week. Well, except for a kicker of an album from a band that should have been bigger in their prime.
The Contribution: Which Way World
This is a supergroup of sorts, well at least according to the PR for the band. It's made up of guys from bands I honestly never really heard of, including the String Cheese Incident. Not that it matters one bit, this is some great rock any way you might slice it. It's mellow at times and drifts into country territory on songs like “Time Was Only Yesterday” or even 70s mellow rock (without the schmaltz).
This is a great album from start to finish for times when you want to mellow out and relax. The bunch of guys appearing here clearly wanted to make something special for their time together. This has a serious West Coast vibe to it, with smatterings of honky tonk and Cajun music tossed in for good measure. I found a bit of a Warren Zevon vibe on these tracks as well, something introspective and pondering. Then they drift into something you could imagine on a Quireboys CD, like “Fear of Nothing.”
This may be a supergroup of bands that you never heard of, but super this album certain is ultimately. It's rare that as a reviewer you get something this good that you never caught wind of before. If you are looking for a release outside your normal comfort zone then give this CD a try. Ultimately good rock like this that is as consistent track to track is rare.
Keel: Streets of Rock & Roll
A band that lots of us loved back in the 80s, but who never really got their due. When grunge hit, lead man re-invented himself as Ronnie Keel in Nashville and continued his songwriting. Now Keel is back with a great album: one of their best and most consistent. From the lead, title track through to the end, this is a band that is not resting on their laurels, but neither are they trying to be something they aren’t. The lead track is everything you would expect from this sort of hard rock with all its anthem-like qualities.
Now signed to Frontiers, they have released one of the best “come-back” albums. More talented that many of the bands that made it back then, but never quite in the top flight of hard rock, they recently re-released their best known album, re-mastered, The Right to Rock. It will probably depress a few hard rockers to realize that was released all of 25 years ago. Their first two albums were produced by none other than Gene Simmons, of Kiss fame, who backed them heavily.
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