Reviews roundup – Chris vs. No Sinner vs. The David Liberty Band

Reviews roundup – Chris vs. No Sinner vs. The David Liberty Band
CHRIS
Days Of Summer Gone
Progress 2013

Christiaan Bruin, to give him his Sunday name, is a busy man. This is his fifth solo album, and he is also the drummer with Sky Architect, keyboard player with Nine Stones Close, the producer of Mayra Orchestra and the drummer with Adeia. And he’s continuing his solo theme of having no theme.

This is the third solo album I’ve heard, and you would never guess they were the work of the same man, as he veers across genres with abandon. This one is the quiet one, because although Chris takes care of vocals, keys, guitars, bass, drums and percussion, he’s brought in a string section, some horns and a flute to flesh out his introspective music.

And it’s very good, if you like to meander through a melancholy soundscape, which slowly unfurls itself across lengthy tracks, taking in his thoughts on longing, paranoia, loss and transiency. So not one for your Hogmanay party, but definitely one for the long hangover that is life.

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NO SINNER
Boo Hoo Hoo
Provogue 2014

I’m not sure how “new” this debut album is, as I was playing the title track from their debut EP about a year back on my radio show. It’s certainly been rejigged with one track being dropped and three new ones added, to get it up to album length. And it doesn’t really matter as I loved it then, and I love it now.

Led with verve and vigour by vocalist Colleen Rennison, whose surname is the bands name backwards, this colonial Canadian blues rock outfit are definitely a band heading up the ladder.

Ms Rennison has the requisite Joplinesque roar, but they are a proper band with the guitar of Eric Campbell just as important. The title track remains a stonker but it’s the new material that shows they are progressing as a band with ‘Devil On My Back’ and ‘September Moon’ the two best tunes they’ve produced so far. Even the cover of Cannonball Adderley’s ‘Work Song’ is a step above what went before.

Definitely a band to watch out for in 2014.

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THE DAVID LIBERTY BAND
Chains And Bones
Freudian Slip 2013

I’m a bit hmm about this one. David Liberty and his band are basically working in the indie idiom, something guaranteed to leave my tree resolutely unshaken, but hither and thither they dip into some sixties avante-garde for some ideas, something which pricks the ears up.

Mr Liberty has been at this for a while, as this is his sixth album, and the bands third, so there are no issues with the presentation or production. But it does seem at times, as if he is casting his net a bit wide. So you never know whether you’re going to get REM or Widespread Panic, with some Hermans Hermits thrown in for luck.

When it’s good, it’s really enjoyable, and I’d happily spin the sixties folk stylings of ‘The Apple’ or the proggish undertones of ‘Protest Song’. His vocals are also a bit love or hate, and a song like ‘X and Y’ has me reaching for the skip button. But then he’ll redeem himself with an unmawkish ballad like ‘End Of Story’.

One you might want to stream first before throwing down your readies.

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Don’t forget to tune into Mr H every Thursday at 8pm, Her Majestys Great British time, when you will find him Rockin’ The Blues on that there internet radio. http://www.getreadytorockradio.com