Reviews roundup – Roxanne de Bastion vs. Revolution Saints vs. The Vibrators vs. Superdirt vs. Jenny Gillespie

Reviews roundup – Roxanne de Bastion vs. Revolution Saints vs. The Vibrators vs. Superdirt vs. Jenny Gillespie

ROXANNE de BASTION
Seeing You EP
Hidden Trail

I’ve enjoyed what I’ve heard from Ms de Bastion, and this latest EP from the Berlin born singer / songwriter is no exception.

It’s basically acoustic folk pop, but there is nothing wrong with that when there are some good songs and fine performances.  It’s actually very traditional in an early seventies sense, which adds to the enjoyment as there is too much flim flam and jibber jabber these days.  So fans of proper songs sung properly will find themselves very much at home here.

The songs seem to be mainly about life and love, with songs like ‘Wasteland’, which tells of her hometown, an absolute delight to listen to.

REVOLUTION SAINTS
Revolution Saints
Frontiers

Let’s rawk!  And who better to do that, than a melodic rock supergroup.  Very much the thing in the nineties when assorted members of melodic rock giants would find themselves in a new affiliation almost weekly, this sees drummer / singer Deen Castronovo (Bad English, Journey etc), singer / bassist Jack Blades (Night Ranger, Damn Yankees, Shaw/Blades) and guitarist Doug Aldrich (formerly of Dio, Whitesnake) teaming up on a Frontiers project.

I’m still calling it a project because everyone always claims that they’re in a band, before heading back home when it sells squat, and with only Aldrich without a home, we’ll see how it goes.  But the album goes very well, as you would expect from a band with their pedigree.  It’s actually even more melodic than I expected, but I’d forgotten about Aldrich in his Burning Rain days, and it’s that he harks back to, rather than his decades with Ronnie James Dio and David Coverdale.

It’s probably closest to Journey than anything else, especially when ‘You’re Not Alone’ arrives with a visit from current Journey vocalist Arnel Pineda and on the big ballad ‘Way To The Sun’.  That one sees Journey guitarist Neal Schon popping in for a solo.  I was also taken with the other power ballad, ‘Don’t Walk Away’, with the best of the harder tracks probably ‘Here Forever’.

If this had come out twenty years ago, it would have been in the US Top 20, along with the likes of Bad English.  As it stands, it’s thoroughly enjoyable piece of melodic hard rock, chock full of excellent performances.

THE VIBRATORS
Punk Mania – Back To The Roots
Cleopatra

And as a complete contrast here’s some punk from The Vibrators!  I actually saw them back in the day, although as I’m (thankfully) just too young for punk, it was probably only Knox in the lineup.  This records sees him with Pete, Eddie and Darrell Bath, and it’s as if the last 30 years never happened.

They were one of the few punk bands I had any time for, alongside The Damned, and as soon as they rattle out of the traps with ‘Retard’ and ‘Blackout you know exactly where you are.  ‘Bleed To Death’ is probably my favourite, and even if the CD has a tad too many songs, it was certainly worth a listen.

There are even more songs on the extended version including a run through the Flamin’ Groovies’ ‘Slow Death’, and it’s an album that media studies lecturers of a certain age, crying into their tea at a jumped up polytechnic, will take to their hearts.

SUPERDIRT
Rock ‘n’ Roll Train
independent

It’s a bit silly naming your album after an AC/DC track.  I mean, no-one is going to find you via Google.  And that would be a shame because Danish band Superdirt are worth listening to.

This is their second album, and they’ve got some friends in high places, which is how Michael Denner from Mercyful Fate and King Diamond fame turns up to play the guitar solo on the title track. But fear ye not, there is no black metal jiggery pokery on offer here.  No it’s heads down rock and roll.

A bit like AC/DC oddly.  They’ve got some big riffs, some shouty bits, as on the title track and, um, ‘Shout’, and it’s the kind of thing you’d really enjoy down a sweaty club with a pint of best in your hand.  It’s very eighties, but in a good way, and is one for fans of that there proper hard rock.

JENNY GILLESPIE
Chamma
Narooma

Oh.  Dear.  Mind what I said up the top of this batch of reviews about “flim flam and jibber jabber”.  Well, here it is.  Apparently, Ms Gillespie decided to use an iPhone as a creative tool, discovering Buddhism half way through the recordings, and then got someone else to add an assortment of other gubbins on top.

And it’s ended up as hippy tosh of the highest order.  I’m sure the Guardian will love it, and there will be many a creative executive using it as the backdrop to a dinner party, but as something to sit down and listen to.  Well, no.  Which is a shame, as the odd moment here and there fools you into thinking something good is going to happen.

It’s an electronic album made by someone who doesn’t have any sort of feel for electronica.  People who enjoyed the folk-prog of the 2012 EP “Belita” are in for a hell of a shock.  And not in a good way.  ‘Evil Eye’ is the only song I would voluntarily listen to, so proceed with caution.