Over the years, Rob Lamothe has explored different musical avenues. Although best known to rock fans as the frontman with Riverdogs back in the 90s, his sometimes overlooked solo career has taken in elements of thoughtful singer-songwriter moods (‘Gravity’), acoustic sounds (‘Wishing Well Motel’), hints of Americana (‘Long Lazy Curve’) and even blues (‘Shine’, recorded with Craig Erickson). Since Lamothe is clearly able to turn his hand to anything and his solo career continually looked forward, his decision to record a brand new Riverdogs album in 2017 came as a surprise. However, ‘California’ was well received, even if the material sometimes felt like a massive step backwards.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Too Much Sun Will Burn: The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967 Volume 2
In 2017, Grapefruit Records released ‘Let’s Go Down & Blow Our Minds’, a three disc anthology bringing together psychedelic favourites, rarities and unreleased gems from 1967. The set proved so popular that similarly curated box sets covering 1968 and 1969 swiftly followed. A comprehensive voyage through an interesting landscape, capturing an era where new studio trickery pushed rock and pop music forward apace, between them, this trio of releases comprised an unmissable treat. For those who couldn’t get enough psych and freakbeat, the label even issued a further five discs’ worth of material from the era in the lavish ‘I Think I’m Going Weird’, a release that brought some of the biggest underground gems to public attention since Bam Caruso Records unleashed their ‘Rubble’ series of releases in the early 90s.
Despite the comprehensive amount of material from 1967 filling ‘Let’s Go Down’ and the ‘…Weird’ box set, Grapefruit have uncovered yet more gems from the year with ‘Too Much Sun Will Burn’. You might think at this point that another psych box would feel like overkill – but you’d be wrong. More so than ever before, this set brings a wealth of rare material via a set of tracks that were recorded in 1967, but not actually issued at the time, and a great selection of harder to find 7” sides. Obviously, some of these have crawled out on other comps over the years, but it’s great to have them easily accessible and in one place. There are also a few genuinely unreleased cuts to tempt the hardened collector, making it a release that should please a broad spectrum of psych lovers.
LARRY WALLIS & THE BRAINS – Leather Forever 2023
Larry Wallis was one of rock’s nearly men. He was a member of UFO for about three weeks in 1972. He adopted the guitarist’s role in the Pink Fairies later in the decade, by which time, the band were arguably past their best. He recorded a riff-based single, ‘Police Car’ for Stiff Records in 1977 that failed to chart. Even in terms of other Stiff product from the time, it’s not always the most celebrated.
LEVELLERS – Together All The Way
The Levellers are one of those bands who’ve often kept themselves incredibly busy. Aside from the time spent off the road during the pandemic restrictions, they’ve toured constantly. When not on the road, the members can be found writing or in the studio recording. The band’s production wheel keeps turning in a way that suggests there’s a real love of what they do. Never was this more true than in 2018. Celebrating their 30th anniversary as a band, they released ‘We The Collective’, an album reworking old favourites acoustically, embarked on a twenty two date acoustic tour, played five festival dates, another two big shows arranged around their own “A Beautiful Day Out”, and almost thirty full electric shows. In between those, vocalist/guitarist Mark Chadwick found time to play seven solo gigs. In terms of work ethic, that’s a schedule probably only rivalled by Frank Turner, a man who seemingly never sleeps.
TEMPTRESS – See
This debut album from Temptress was a long time coming. The Texan band returned to the studio following the release of their debut EP in 2019, but soon had their work halted by the global pandemic. The album’s recording was finally finished in 2021, after which Temptress signed with Metal Assault Records. Instead of getting the material out straight away, everyone waited until the time was right, and ‘See’ eventually saw the light of day in the first quarter of 2023, over three years on from its inception.