Elly Roberts reviews

The Yellow Moon Band:
Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The World

Distributed by
Static Caravan Records

Released: January 2009

Rating: 10/10++

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Long album title: short song titles: BIG album.

As debuts go, this is very very impressive, even more so because, basically they’re an instrumental band. We get vocals but they’re limited, and effective.

Giving a massive nod to 70s classic rock, TYMB have tapped into the genre’s key elements, and could make them ‘the most exiting discovery of 2009’. Shame they don’t have a singer, but that’s being churlish, because this album is SENSATIONAL, really.

As an art student brought up on dollops of riffs and mesmerising solos, these guys will appeal to the petuly oil brigade, which, I hasten to add, I never indulged in.

Back to the music, Mathew Priest (drums/vocals), Rudy Carroll (guitar/mandolin), Jo Bartlett (guitar/vocals) and Danny Hagan (bass/vocals) fall somewhere between Wishbone Ash and many 70s greats like Dutch masters Focus and then art-rockers Genesis.

This is rock with hi-energy melody (yes it can be achieved) from four guys who are maestros of their instruments and immaculate songcraft, and this can heard from the get-go countrified wanderings of Polaris, which in a Wishbone Ash (remember Argus) way, building and layering their instruments, and playing them out of their skin. Jimmy Page would be drooling over the long solo here.

Wiry solos and that twin guitar lead synonymous with Wishbone Ash and Thin Lizzy rolls out, backed by a thumping rhythm section, with Entangled showing more guitar lick showboating. What follows, Maybach, has a scintillating riff and solo that’s mind-bogg ling, though it’s not all blood and thunder, as they dip-down for a while, regaining their stride with full-on pedal to the metal.

Focused, is stylish and penetrating, pooling all the memories (or renewed interest) they can muster from 30 years ago. Frenetic acoustic strums open Domini, and prefix what turns out to be steady beat and wailing guitar licks that twist and turn before it moves into another gear. Heavy nylon string picks, and pedal steel ooze and melt into each other in perfect harmony (and shades of Led Zep’s gentler moments) to the slowest tack here Window: it’s amazing stuff, honestly.

To end it all, and you really don’t want it to end, Lunadelica is a monster that’ll define this band forever.

The Yellow Moon Band may draw on the past, but you’d never know it, as they’re the only band (in my books anyway) who’ve really cracked modern classic rock.

The verdict: Absolutely brilliant…a real guitar band for the 21st century.

Weblink: staticcaravan.org.com

Radio: Hear tracks soon on wrexhamfm.com

The full list of tracks included are :

1. Polaris 2. Chimney 3. Entangled 4. Maybach 5. Focussed 6. Domini 7. Window 8. Lunadelica

Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2010.

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