You know when people put “I work well under pressure” on their CV? Some of them even say it in interviews. Fair play to them. If I’d ever been a footballer and it went to penalties, I’d have been the one asking the keeper if he fancied taking one before me. I haven’t got the disposition for it.
So when Wayne Doyle talks about the pressure of following up two UK Top 20 albums, and how deep he had to dig to make this one, I can only imagine. “See Through Blue” got to number seven and “Where The Colours Meet” reached number 15. You could forgive a band for spending a bit of time enjoying that. Doyle, Gary Doyle, Chris Jones and Carl Oag sound like they’d already moved on to working out how to go one better.
“God’s Honest Truth” gets to it straight away. “Taking pills on the promise they’ll remove the pain” is some line to hear that early in a record. It comes with the big rock sound you’d expect from Scarlet Rebels, but Wayne’s giving you a good reason to listen to the verses as closely as the chorus.
And speaking of big sounds, am I allowed to compare “This Is Happening Now” to Stereophonics? Well, I just have. There’s something wonderfully uplifting about the way it opens up, even as Doyle leaves you with the feeling there’s more going on underneath. “Don’t Look Down”, meanwhile, is a prime example of why a lot of us have loved this band for years. It’s a song about taking the leap and it sounds like they’re taking it with you.
They’ve always excelled at those mid-paced Bon Jovi rockers, and “Chains” is as good a place as any to appreciate the Richie Sambora sound Chris Jones gets out of his guitar. Then there’s “Stuck”. If you want to know what Doyle means about digging deep, start there. You can hear how much of himself he’s put into the words. There’s more of that in “Hanging On A Rope”, although the first time you hear its chorus you can practically hear a crowd singing it back already.
The keys on “Run” give it a lovely bit of ’80s AOR depth, and there’s a confidence to “Happy Ever After” that comes from a band who know how good they are at this. Like Those Damn Crows, Scarlet Rebels have always sounded like they had bigger rooms in mind. You could hear that ambition in the songs long before they had the chart positions to back it up.
Without the rain you don’t get the flowers, goes the thought in “Never Be Enough”. Doesn’t that just about sum up the record? The choruses come so naturally that you could sing along to “Let It Out” and only later clock how badly Doyle wants to break free. And there was always going to be something of a power ballad in here somewhere, wasn’t there? “Fool Your Heart” closes the record, and it’s exquisitely done.
This is Scarlet Rebels’ fourth album, and it’s the one I’d play to someone who’s never heard them. They call their fans the Rebel Club. On the strength of this, they might need to print a few more membership cards.
Rating: 9/10
