I’ll be honest, it wouldn’t have mattered who had opened for Robert John And The Wreck last year, given how much I love that band, but it was Bywater Call. Or to be accurate, it was a couple of them that had made it from Canada. Guitarist Dave Barnes and singer Meghan Parnell.
They were performing acoustically (Barnes even called it “my worst nightmare”), but as I’ve believed for decades, the best songs always translate to any format.
These did, don’t worry about that, but still, it feels that here, with “Shepherd,” the band’s third album, you’re getting the full-on Call experience.
Right from the start of “Everybody Knows,” the contrast between the acoustic songs and the rock ones is stark. Where they’d
been down, here it is all about bombast. Parnell roars like Janis Joplin fronting the Black Crowes, and it’s extraordinary.
“Colors” does indeed do that acoustic thing, but make no mistake, it’s still special because everyone here is so talented. It’s so clear to hear.
What can also be heard is a country sound, but like on “Sweet Maria,” it is one mixed with so much soul. It’s natural to them, like it was to Southside Johnny, for example. There’s nothing forced about the horn section here, and you know that they’ll be playing this live.
What strikes you from the moment you hear this is the diversity of all the material—for example, the primal blues explosion of “Holler” is totally different to what they’ve
done before, but how it all fits together. The mark of a supremely talented band, first and foremost.
“For All We Know” is typical of a few songs on “Shepherd” given that it confidently builds, and also the piano tinkling of John Kervin has a lot to do with that.
Frequently, you find yourself listening to this, thinking you might be listening to a cover. That’s a testament to how familiar this instantly sounds. There’s a warmth about the likes of “Roll,” with its glorious harmonies, or “Turn It Around,” a track which, in my world in the middle of the UK, you romantically think just about every bar below the Mason-Dixon line had a band playing music of this type in.
It all just keeps coming at you. The horns take the honours again on “Now And Never,” which also possesses a catchy chorus of real skill.
The more these songs worm their way in, the more you think of the E Street Band. Bywater Call has a similar way of crafting euphoria, like a congregational feel. The bass of “As If” is genuinely funky, and if the feel of a Second Line on a New Orleans Mardi Gras is never too far away, then you’d best believe it’s all over “Sign Of Peace,” which races around on the quest for the sort of soul not heard since the first Eli “Paperboy” Reed record.
“Shepherd” is the first album that’s been entirely recorded, produced, and put together by the band—not, you imagine, because they were short of offers or because of insularity on their part, but because of a desire to realise their vision for the album.
“Shepherd” is so good, they’ve surely done just that. Now, you just hope people flock to it as they should.
Rating: 8.5/10
