REVIEW: BLACKBALLED – ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM (2020)

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It is a measure of how long Blackballed have been around that the first time I saw them was six years or so ago.

It was a Saturday night, if I recall correctly, and they were playing downstairs in the pub because there was a glam rock gig in the main room.

That shouldn’t, perhaps register more than a footnote in the review, but to me it sums The Manchester three piece up. Why? Well because if ever a band does it for the love, its this one. I’d watched the trio soundcheck that night while half watching some football on the tv and they’d done a ZZ Top number, and the feeling was then, they just wanted to play some music.

You might know their singer/guitarist Marshall Gill too. He’s in new Model Army, and Blackballed is the band he formed with his brother, Leon (who departed last year), but its also the band that plays bluesy rock n roll not dark goth hewn from the Dales.

“When The Devil Calls” the track which opens album number three grooves – and the whole album could be called “groovy” if you so choose – choppy riffs, and harmonies that have scant regard for anything modern, plus when Gill lets that solo go, you can hear the Rev. Billy if you close your eyes.

That’s pretty much the vibe throughout. Certainly musically at any rate, but the lyrics are cleverer than you might imagine. “Someone Else’s Shoes” is a highlight and there’s a palpable anger in its words.

The title track broods along like a real guitar rocker, and if the, well, elephant in the room as a whole, is the absence of Leon, then his replacement Alex Whitbread shines throughout.

Everything about this record is supremely well done – and after all, don’t three pieces always sound so well balanced? And “Show Me The Light”, like many here, has a deceptively catchy hook.

It’s not all one paced, either. “Another Lonely Day” adds some acoustic, lighter shades, and “Flesh And Bone” marks what is essentially the half-way point with a full on power ballad, and good luck to it. Thunder have made a career out of this stuff.

The funky “The Lion” about getting leathered with the local hard case, as far as I can tell (“a million drinks with ‘Charlie White’…..”) doesn’t quite walk the lines (puns intended) of the others either, and “Break These Chains” swings its balls, and “Bring You Down” is almost Stone Temple Pilots-like in the way it injects urgency.

But when you boil it down, then mostly, “Elephant In The Room” is riffy, bluesy, hard rock with just a touch of northern grit – not a million miles from what their fellow Mancunians Federal Charm used to do if you want a ballpark.

Ultimately it stands as a testament to making music because it burns deep within you. This is not the sort of thing for a Spotify playlist, this is the sort of thing a real enthusiast puts on the turntable and listens to from start to finish. It lends itself to people who actually care about music and not style over substance – because it was made by three of them.

Rating 8/10

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