Review: Laurence Jones – Bad Luck & The Blues
Marshall Records (August 25th 2023)
Reviewer: Mark Jackson
Laurence Jones is a Liverpool born UK based guitarist/vocalist with 4 British blues awards and a list of cool support slots! (Walter Trout and Royal Southern Brotherhood to name a couple) as well as a headliner in his own right.
Mr Jones’ new album ‘Bad Luck & The Blues‘ is a fiery chunk of 70’s style Blues rock that reminds me forcibly of Juggernaut era Frank Marino, with a hybrid of Anvils’ lips and Doug Pinnick from Kings X on vocals!.
Starting gun ‘Bad Luck & The Blues‘ has some funky, fiesty licks and chops pumping frets in good order. Next up is my personal fave ‘I’m Gone‘ a great melody, sweet basslines and dynamo drumming from the engine room of bassist Jack Alexander Timmis (Virgil & The Accelerators) and new drummer Ash Sheehan (Glenn Hughes, Tony Iommi, The Twang)..a very cool song, should’ve opened with that one.
Track 4, ‘Don’t You Leave Me This Way‘, has a 70’s prog intro into a grinding blues riff adding extra flavour to the musical feast.
‘Lost And Broken‘ has some metal/rock arrangements with guitar leads eerily reminiscent of Ty Tabor from Kings X!.
‘Stuck In The Night‘ has a great riff, but there’s a rub in a few of the songs, it’s the lyrics that let them down, some pretty tired hoary old lines which kinda make me groan, it’s a shame, cos I don’t want it to detract from the big dirty balls….of sound!
This is actually a good workout album, with the music hefting heavy steel, but a lil’ more time spent on the lyrics would def make it stronger.
On to ‘Take Control‘ another blisterfest which smokes, again, this should have been in the first three songs on the record. ‘Woman‘ has another fine steroid jacked up riff and great rythymic work.
So to summarise, there’s a lot of high value musical protein here but a few lumpy chunks of lyrics hard to swallow.
As a touring artist, this album has some real bangers to take on the road, I’d def like to see a cool video to ‘I’m Gone‘..and then I reckon with some great support slots/festivals Laurence Jones has the ability to not only reach his Blues audience, but also a Rock audience as well.
Tracklist:
- Bad Luck & The Blues
- I’m Gone
- Lonely Road
- Don’t You Leave Me This Way
- Lost & Broken
- Stuck In The Night
- Take Control
- Out In The Distance
- Woman
- You’re Not Alone
Discover more from ROCKPOSER DOT COM!
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.