Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 stars
Gary Moore Band: Grinding Stone (Reportoire, September 20, 2005) ****
Muse: Origin Of Symmetry [Enhanced] (Warner Brothers, September 20, 2005) ***
Herb Alpert: Whipped Cream And Other Delights (King Japan, September 20, 2005) **
Krishna Das: Pilgrim Heart (Triloka, September 20, 2005) **
You know it's a slow week for reissues when Gary Moore has the most interesting one, and Herb Alpert and Krishna Das make the list. But we work with what we have.
Gary Moore Band: Grinding Stone
Gary Moore is barely known in the U.S., although he's managed to keep a cult audience in England and Europe over the years. A guitarist in the style of Peter Green, who helped him land his first record deal, Moore's mostly-instrumental Grinding Stone was his first project following the disbanding of his first band, Skid Row (not the 80's hair metal guys), in 1972. Grinding Stone is from 1973, and the band consisted of Moore on vocals and guitar, Pearse Kelly on drums, and John Curtis on bass. Grinding Stone is something of a transitional effort; a little amplified blues rock, like Moore's earliest work, and the barest hints of fusion, which hints at his later work with Colosseum II. The nine minute title track gets a pretty good groove on, while "Time To Heal" is a blues-boogie featuring Moore's fairly ragged vocals. "Sail Across The Mountain" is slower and soulful; the 17-minute "Spirit" crosses the line from bluesy metal into fullblown progressive rock. Is there an audience for this? Depends how much you like Moore's guitar, which still does recall Green's, but with less fluidity. It's a lumpen album in the worst excessive tradition of the the early 70's, which isn't really a put-down, but as a guitar album or a power-trio album it delivers the goods, and is fairly unique for its time.
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