Reviews roundup – Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Ghost Town Blues Band vs. Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued vs. Hot Mama vs. My Victim
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Sweet Home Alabama (Rockpalast)
Eagle
There must be a gazillion Lynyrd Skynyrd live albums out there. So why should you buy this one? Um, not sure, really. I mean it’s good, but then the regurgitated Lynyrd Skynyrd have never failed to impress, and they do so again on this set from 1996, recorded for German TV.
But it’s another greatest hits set, with nothing from either “Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991” or “The Last Rebel”, the two new records they’d made by that point. So it’s wall to wall seventies tunes, played impeccably. And it’s a treat for me, as a Southern Rock fan, to hear Rick Medlocke and Hughie Thomasson on guitar, especially as this was the year I saw them live. The classics are all there – ‘Workin For MCA’, ‘Down South Jukin’, ‘Swamp Music’, ‘Call Me The Breeze’ and, of course, ‘Free Bird’.
The second CD is filled out with three bonus tracks from the Hamburg Musikhalle on 5 December 1974 featuring the original Skynyrd performing ‘Workin’ For MCA’, ‘Free Bird’ and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, and you also get a third disc featuring the 1996 concert. It’s two hours of Skynyrd, but not for the casual listener.
GHOST TOWN BLUES BAND
Hard Road To Hoe
independent
From Southern Rock to blues rock isn’t a great leap, and here comes the Ghost Town Blues Band from Memphis, Tennessee.
And they’re good. They do blues rock, and they do down and dirty blues, and they even take on some country blues. Which makes them even more like a Southern Rock band. The guitar works harks back to the seventies, and they’ve got some good tunes on board, with ‘Dime In The Well’, ‘Road Still Drives The Same’ and the brass blast of ‘Mr Handy Man’ my current favourites.
Vocalist and guitarist Matt Isbell puts in a good shift alongside his band mates and a guest appearance from Brandon Santini, and by the time you reach the closing cover of Junior Wells’ ‘Messin’ With The Kid’, you know you’ve had a damn fine time.
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued
Eagle
Be still my beating heart. It’s some old Bob Dylan poetry set to music 45 years after they were written, featuring the likes of Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford. And even better, it’s all been filmed by director Sam Jones so that the “Lost On The River” album doesn’t have to stand alone as an audio only pile of steaming faeces, sorry “important and historical cultural backdrop”.
I mean, really, does the world need video evidence of Elvis Costello wearing a bad hat, whilst pontificating on the sixth form poetry of Bon Dylan. Apparently so, which is why I would never knowingly buy a copy of Mojo magazine. But they’ll love it. Me, I gave up half way through the two hour waterboarding, knowing that it was only going to get worse, despite the presence of “an extraordinary collective of musicians”.
But if you like to watch people discussing music as an intellectual exercise, rather than getting a kick in the gut, then this might be the place for you.
HOT MAMA
Re-Earth
Fast Ball
Some modern metal now, with a few progressive tinges from German, female fronted band, Hot Mama. Well,s straight off, I’ll be the judge of that, but musically, they have their moments, to go with the splendid Metropolis artwork.
It’s not brilliant, but with a strong production and a handful of good tunes, there is enough of a suggestion that they could progress into something better. The band is solid and the vocals of Sonya are good, especially on the better songs like ‘Alive’ and ‘Let It Die’.
There are a few nods back to the nu-metal sounds of System Of A Down and their ilk, especially on the percussive side, and if that floats your boat, then stream a few tunes and make up your own mind.
MY VICTIM
My Victim
independent
Off to the Bay Area now to meet up with a band formed in San Francisco in 1987. Over the years they played shows with the like of Metallica, Exodus, Death Angel, Possessed and many more, but it still took them over twenty years to release their debut CD.
Now, here’s the second, and despite the names above, they’re not a thrash metal band. Nope, Torre Carstensen, Bill Storkson, Adam McKibben, Andy Wayne and Yasushi Kajita look a wee bit further back than that, and seem to really like the good old New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Which is fine by me, as I am a child of the NWOBHM.
So it’s metal with a hint of seventies rock, with the odd nod to thrash. They actually resemble the aforementioned, early nineties, Metallica as much as anything else, and on songs like ‘Dance With The Devil’, ‘Crash’ and ‘Gods Of Perpetual Destruction’ they rock like yer actual bastards. Good work.
The Rocker - The Artist Formerly Known As Zeitgeist. TAFKAZ 
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