Not that it particularly bothers me, but I get almost daily reminders that I’m getting old.
There were two today. First someone asked me when I was born and when I replied “1975”, she helpfully considered it and goes: “ooooh my dad is a year younger than you”.
This came about two hours after the kid who sits behind me at work looked at this website and said – I swear – “oh you wouldn’t like any of the bands I do, I like classic rock man, Sterophonics and Foo Fighters, that type of thing.”
Ladies and gents, if we live in a world where those bands – who I saw on their first tours by the way – are classic rock, then its time to put up the shutters and say goodbye.
The point, though, is that classic rock is a couple of words that – essentially – means nothing. This Sun House record is “classic rock” to me, but to you? Well, who knows.
“Ticket To Fly” is their debut album. However, that doesn’t really tell the story. They used to be a three piece, when original singer Emilia Quinn quit, original members Jamie Ellis and Cam Meek decided to carry on with guest singers on each album.
For these 10 tracks they chose Tomas Baptista. And they chose well, believe me. He is incredible on this, and largely, guest or not, he owns these songs.
Which brings us back to the “classic rock” thing, and actually the reason why this is a really interesting release. I assumed if I am honest, after the title track that this would be a pretty easy one to get a handle on. Like Led Zep IV, this is raucous, raw energy and Ellis can clearly play the guitar he wields (right adjective too) but whilst there are elements of that throughout, it doesn’t tell the story. Not a bit.
Rather, it flits and flies about. “Take My Money” has a blues groove, reminiscent, perhaps of J Lee and Voodoo Skulls (who’s guitarist Harun Kotch produces this) but there’s a real edge too. “Lock N Load” – for my money – the absolute highlight is what I wished Rival Sons would sound like. The thunder of a 70s rock band but with the modernity of Royal Blood.
“Loose Woman” gets full on trippy, like some acid trip in a tent at Woodstock, while the blues that is clear everywhere, really bubbles itself to the surface on “Heed The Call (Of The Western War)” but, its almost as if they can’t play it straight. So it gets itself up a kind of mystical, almost Kula Shaker road.
The thought, really, that this could have been anything is never far away, really. “Do I Say” is a lovely acoustic thing, beautifully stripped down on a record that is seldom that. Warm harmonies abound, a thought that “Convict” is a million miles from. Primal beats lurk with a dark malevolence, but as if to emphasise the thought that this is a band mere heartbeats away from being a full on jam outfit, along comes the complex instrumental of “Icarus”.
And, just when you think you’ve got them pegged, they bring things back full circle with “My Baby Left Me”, an original apparently, but seemingly lifted from a London blues club in about 1969.
Put bluntly, there are bands with huge hype behind them that aren’t this good. Sun House are superb, and whilst they might continue this journey with different singers, “Ticket To Fly” proves that if they were to stick with this one, it’d be no bad thing. It seems, though, that they are the sort of band who wants to always evolve.
Rating 8.5/10
