Egypt

Between them these three guys have about a hundred years of playing Blues and with names like Bo Diddley, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles (!), the Groundhogs and The Kinks on their various CVs you might expect a certain level of ability to be on show, What you get is an album that is thoroughly rooted in classic British Blues Rock and played without any of the apologetic stance that many of the veterans shape to these days – these guys are proud of what they do and they do it damn well!

The album is a mix of classics – John Lee Hookers ‘Ride Til You Die’, Robert Johnson’s ‘Walking Blues’ and a great cover of the Groundhogs signature ‘Garden’ – and self-penned material and their own stuff sounds about on a par with the rest.
Check out ‘Fu Man Chew’ for subtlety or ‘Lazy Maisie’ for great driving music and a belting vocal performance. ‘Walking Blues’ features some terrific slide playing and ‘Rocking The Room’ sounds like a great set-closer for their live show. To be frank I can’t find a weak number out of the 10 tracks here.

Eric Chipulina plays guitar with a wonderful full-bodied Gibson sound and Alan Fish’ bass is almost jazzy in its melody lines but Peter Correa holds the whole thing together with some solid and buzzing drumming – a classic 3 piece and playing the way that only a 3 piece can. I really would love to see these guys live.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not groundbreaking stuff. It is played with real care and a lot of love for their style of music and you really get the feel of a band who play this music because it works for them and playing together is the best thing that they can do but it isn’t taking Blues to the ‘next level’ or ‘Redefining the Blues for the 21st Century’. If you are a lover of progressive Blues – the likes of Groundhogs or Leafhound, Atomic Rooster or Budgie – this will tweak a lot of buttons for you.