LOUD HAILER

Jeff Beck is back and as always his experimental, don´t give a damn!, daring spirit is attached. Good news for those who enjoyed my favorite "You Had It Coming", 2001, and the inexplicably undervalued "Emotion & Commotion", 2010 his previous studio release. Bad news for those who are still expecting Jeff Beck to fit his Rock/Jazz/Fusion PA´s address, again.

So, as I was mentioning, his "electronic" electric guitar songwriting+performace taints most of the atmosphere of "Loud Hailer", 2016.

"The Revolution Will Be Televised", track one. A heavy bassed and femenine electronic guitar blues counterpointed by intelligent and a black to the bone female distorted voice and lyrics. 4.5 stars

"Live in the Dark". Track 2, a Jeff Beck's contemporary Heavy Rock song, amazing in virtuosity, but kept straight in line, even to simplicity, if you wish. (Of course Jeff Beck's simplicity is not simple, but that only matters to actual guitar players.) 4 stars.

"Pull It", gets even heavier. No vocals, the kind of "say yes to excess", that always works wonders for such an adventurous fellow. Short and efficient. 4 stars.

"Thugs Club" track 4, gets down and dirty with Jeff Beck's famous heavy bassed/drummed boogie like, street wise stomps and his unique unpsychedelic-into space incursions. An intelligent and political focused lyric becomes the best excuse for Jeff to make his personal "bare to the bone", explosive guitar statements of the topic in hand. 4.5 stars.

Track 5 dims the lights down to a slow paced/romantic Roger Waters' like composition, "Scared for the Children". In fact the kind that happened when he played alongside the Pink's main man, nice, not unique, but nicely achieved. 3.5 stars.

"Right Now". A well written set of "protest-song" like lyrics triggers the nastiness back. Unapolagetic and daring, again, his "electronic" electric guitar, high rising Rock, deep bottom Blues shines on. 4 stars.

For those acquainted with Jeff Beck's track structuring, there are always his formidable, dream like instrumental pieces, "Shame" (4 stars) is a kind of short composition in that vein, but actually it serves as the opener for "Edna", track 8.

"Edna", is the kind of track which covers the more than well established protocols of Heavy Prog/Rock, Jeff Beck's way of course, with an epic riff which reminds me of the also extraordinary and underrated and long gone Gary Moore. 4.5 stars.

"The Ballad of the Jersey Wives", track 9. Even I, an avid follower of Beck and Hendrix, could never bare Funk in any of its forms but some Bryan Ferry's or David Bowie's or Talking Heads' or even Fripp´s kind of ones and some not all. Besides those exceptions, Funk and I do not match. 3 stars (because of the show stopper solo in the past middle of the song, not because I am trying to be impartial).

"O.I.L." is a lyric/melody wise like blend which sounds like a cross between Knopfler/Dylan/Waters + Beck, in an uplifting hymn like Rock prayer. Beautiful, not exactly unique, but performance will make up for your time. 3.9 stars.

"Shrine" closes this release while bringing back some years in time. What to say, Prog was not even born yet and less as we now know it now. Phil Spector made big fame and money reuniting exquisite black female voices in the then named girl groups. To cut it short if you ever heard and listened to "The Ronettes" and felt caught by their unorthodox harmonics, as I did, you are in for a memorable, true to the bone and heartfelt contemporary rendition of those girl-groups years. If not, a good chance to check out Phil Spector's super famous "wall of sound". 4 stars.

Summing it up by numbers >

****4, (almost everything but Jazz/Fusion), PA stars.

Share this JEFF BECK review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to admireArt
• Report this review (#1588987)
• Buy JEFF BECK music online with PA partners
• Show all JEFF BECK MP3/Stream
• Go to JEFF BECK page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Loud Hailer page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for JEFF BECK related discussions