Rival Sons, a
Californian blues rock group that the Classic
Rock Magazine has hailed as “saviors of rock and roll”, has just released a
new album called Great Western Valkyrie.
I must admit that it is an album that I have been dying to hear for quite a
while, ever since the band announced that they have started working on new
material. I have been an adamant fan since I first heard the band, right after
the release of their second album, Pressure
and Time, and with the recognition they have been receiving from the blues
rock community, they have quite big shoes to fill with the new one.
The band was
formed in 2009 when the other members convinced Jay Buchanan, a folk singer at
the time, to try rock ’n’ roll, and thank god they did, because otherwise, one
of the greatest modern rock vocalists might never have found his calling. The
drums are handled by Michael Miley, who as an interesting side note resides in
Estonia, when the band is not on tour. The guitarist of the band is Scott
Holiday and the current bass player is Dave Beste.
Great Western Valkyrie seems to keep Rival Sons’ winning
formula going: make pure and unadulterated blues rock, the way it was made in
60’s and 70’s. The album feels gritty and powerful, but most importantly, human.
They haven’t sucked the life out of the songs by overproducing or over-editing
them. Most of the songs have been tracked live, with the whole band together
and most of what ended up on the album were the first or second takes of songs.
It has been the way they’ve done things from the beginning, and to me that is a
big part of the Rival Sons’ magic. You get what you hear, and the best part is
that they are able to reproduce the same thing in a live situation.
The sound of
the album seems to be both more refined but also in some aspects much
wilder. The album as a whole feels much
tighter and more consistent sounding than Head
Down, the previous record. But Scott Holiday, the guitarist seems to have
turned all of his fuzzes up to eleven. The guitar sounds are definitely much
more gritty, fuzzy and experimental on the new album. On Head Down, pretty much the whole album sounded the same as far as
guitars are concerned, but on Great
Western Valkyrie, Holiday seems to have worked a lot, trying to find
different sounds to suit each song, and I certainly think it has been a big
improvement. However, the main thing that caught my attention, was how big and
punchy the drums sound, I’m sure that Michael Miley’s chops play a big part in this, but whatever they did
this time, it feels like a perfect modern answer to John Bonham’s quest for the
ultimate drum sound.
As far as
the songs go, right off the bat, the first one, Electric Man, gets the album off to fuzzy and groovy start with the
ballsy guitar and huge drums. Electric
Man was also the first track released as an iTunes teaser. Throughout the
song, Miley lays down the Rival Sons’ signature hit the bell as hard as you
possibly can drum groove, which Beste nicely compliments with a funky bass
track. The band took quite a blow, when the previous bassist, Robin Everhart announced
sometime in last year that touring life is not for him, and they will need to
find a new bass player. So far it seems that their choice has been a very good
one.
The next
song, Good Luck, keeps the energy of Electric Man going with a nice, slightly
cliché breakup song, which includes an interesting, gritty sounding dialog-like
solo in the end. The third song, Secret,
kicks things into next gear and is undoubtedly the most intense one on the
album. Miley and Holiday have seriously outdone themselves with this one, the
heavy swinging feel of the song is something to be revered. As far as the
vocals are concerned, well, you can almost hear the ripping of Buchanan’s vocal
chords despite the pretty heavily distorted vocal sound. Play the Fool keeps the classic Rival Sons’ vibe going and is another
upbeat song, with a little jam section in the middle, to give it a more
interesting twist.
Good Things, however, is something completely
different, a slower, more laid back song with a very prominent keyboard part.
The keyboards are something that in my opinion separate this album from the
previous ones, the band has always included some keyboards, tucked away in the
back of the mix, but on Great Western
Valkyrie, they are much more prominently featured and Good Things is the most heavily keyboard driven song on the album.
It is also the song that seems to feature Beste’s best bass work, with a groove
that is absolutely vital to the song.
Open My Eyes is the first official single of the
album and opens with a very Zeppelinesque phased drum intro, followed by the heaviest
and most memorable riff of the record. It’s quite easy to see, why this track
was chosen as the first single, it really grabs you from the start and doesn’t
let go, until you’ve been thoroughly shaken by the badass groove.
Rich and the Poor is another song with prominent
keyboards, I especially liked the way that the guitar and the keyboard work
together to compliment the main melody in the bridges of the song, and for that
reason, this one became my favorite from the album.
Belle Starr also differs from the usual upbeat
Rival Sons song and combines heavy guitars with slower and more relaxed
sections. The song is about a notorious American outlaw, but for some reason
feels like it would be more at home as a Bonnie and Clyde type movie
soundtrack.
Where I’ve Been is the only ballad on the album, it
has quite a significant country feel to it as it progresses from its quiet
acoustic beginning to the intense end with some nice touchy-feely lead guitar
work by Holiday. The last song, Destination
on Course also starts out as a ballad, but ends up in a crazy psychedelic jam,
with some very interesting guitar leads thrown all over the stereo panorama. I
also like the fact that they included some choral singing in this one, it
really seems somewhat out of place, but intensifies the psychedelic, trippy
feel of the song.
As a whole, I
think that Great Western Valkyrie is
some of Rival Sons’ best work up to date. It delivers pretty much exactly what
the fans were expecting from them: a raw intense rock album with a few quirks
thrown in for good measure. Although I feel that the quirk department was a
little lacking for my personal taste. The album could definitely have used
another song like Destination on Course, essentially
a nice jam song, but the current offerings are by no means bad and I’m sure
that it is another Rival Sons album that will become a modern classic as far as
blues rock goes.
Taavo Teras
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