I have to admit, I'd pretty much given up on Savoy Brown a few years back. In reviewing the band's Too Much Of A Good Thing album, a compilation of the "best of" Savoy Brown circa 1992-2007, I found most of the performances from that era to be clichéd, hackneyed, and wooden replicas of the power and muscle of the band's incredible string of 1970s-era albums.
At one time, they were British blues-rock royalty, Savoy Brown keeping the flame of guitar-driven blues-rock music burning bright long after contemporaries had fallen by the side of the road. Albums like Looking In (1970), Street Corner Talking (1971), and Hellbound Train (1972) introduced many a stateside teenaged punter to the blues idiom. During the period represented by Too Much Of A Good Thing, however, guitarist and band founder Kim Simmonds was the only constant, and even his usually entertaining six-string bluster seemed rote by comparison to earlier performances.
Savoy Brown's Voodoo Moon
Thus, I held out little hope for redemption by Savoy Brown's move to the esteemed German blues label Ruf Records with their Voodoo Moon album. However, I've been pleasantly surprised, for Voodoo Moon is a very good – not great – Savoy Brown album. Simmonds has assembled what is possibly his best road and studio band in two decades, fronted by veteran vocalist Joe Whiting. Bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnet Grimm are a solid rhythm section, and Simmonds tones down the bombast for many of the songs in favor of a more measured, and intelligent approach to his finger-blistering solos.
Voodoo Moon kicks off with "Shockwaves," the song displaying the sort of John Lee Hooker-inspired boogie-blues sound that has become Savoy Brown's meat-and-potatoes over the decades. Above a rollicking groove, Whiting shouts out his lyrical tale of woe while Simmonds' stands strikingly in the corner, peeling the paint from the walls with muted intensity. "Natural Man" is a much more atmospheric number, more rock 'n' roll with bluesy overtones than expected, a shuffling groove met by a breathless vocal performance and subtle darts of guitar displaying fine tone and considerable restraint.
Meet The Blues Head On
By contrast, "She's Got The Heat" is pure houserockin' roadhouse blues, with Andy Rudy's honky-tonk piano-pounding, washes of razor-sharp guitar, Whiting's raucous vocals, and a few well-placed explosive drumbeats...this one is gonna kill 'em when played live! Simmonds takes the microphone for "Look At The Sun" and "Round And Round," but it's the former that stands out, Simmonds swamp-blues fretwork reminding of John Campbell, lending an air of cypress-shrouded malevolence behind his somber, spoken-more-than-sung low-slung vocals. It makes for a nice change from Whiting's far different style, and with a dark ambiance to the soundtrack, the song weaves a mesmerizing spell.
The title track carries the backwoods, alligator-infested swamp-blues musical theme a step further, a sparse musical backing suddenly exploding in a flurry of heartbeat bass lines, crashing drumbeats, and some of Simmonds' most spectacular and inspired fretwork in years. While the key word here is "cautious" – the song never blows up to the absurd proportions of much of Simmonds' early-2000s work – everything from the vocals to the rhythm are spot on and effective. It wouldn't be a Savoy Brown album without a bona fide barn-burner, the requirement fulfilled here by "Meet The Blues Head On," an anthemic blues-rock romp with a ballistic rhythm, squalls of keyboard, a powerful vocal turn, and Simmonds' smashing, riff-driven guitarplay and stinging solos. The album-closer, it leaves the listening wanting more....
The Reverend's Bottom Line
In interviews, and in the album's liner notes, Kim Simmonds says that he feels that "the songs on Voodoo Moon are the best I've written since the early 70's," and I'd agree with him. While the lyrics are sometimes awkward or ill-fitting, they're heads and tails above what he was writing in the 1990s. There are no bad or predictable cover songs, but more importantly, it seems that Simmonds has found the right combination of players and chemistry to begin making musical magic once again. The performances here are right, self-confident and providing just enough, seldom too much – as I said, a very good, but not great Savoy Brown album. But while I'm enjoying Voodoo Moon, I'll be looking forward to hearing what the band does next. (Ruf Records, released November 8, 2011)
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