Everyone’s a wynner…..
Another day and another release from Mascot Records. How they keep finding the talent they do without ever dropping the quality is a lesson for the rest of the industry. This time it’s the third release from American band Thomas Wynn And The Believers.
Hailing from Florida, the Band de-camped to Nashville at the end of last summer and in a month cut this splendid record. It’s a record that doesn’t fit easily into one category, with plenty of interesting twists and turns along the way covering Rock, Americana, Soul, Folk and even some Tom Petty flavoured pop.
‘Man Out Of Time’ opens in great style, with Wynn’s sister Olivia vocals taking centre stage over a hypnotic and rock solid rhythm section. The title track is next and it has a real southern soul feel that is almost bordering on gospel in places. ‘Heartbreak Alley’ is Americana in the Chris Stapleton style with a great harmony chorus. ‘My Eyes Won’t Be Open’ is more of the same but with a terrific vocal performance from both Thomas and Olivia; this will be a big number live I’m sure. ‘Thin Love’ is nice and light, a real summer song. ‘I Don’t Regret’ is a slow burning, gospel flavoured number with another big vocal performance. ‘You Can’t Hurt Me’ is the first time on this album that they live up to the ‘Southern Rock’ tag given to them on their Bio page. This will be another storming number live where it will have even more crunch – it’s a great song and easily my favourite here. ‘Mountain Fog’ is of the same quality but in a different style with its acoustic folk guitar intro and haunting vocals turning halfway through into an up-tempo rocker. ‘Burn As One’ has influences of the Black Crowes and features Hammond player Colin Daniel Fei and Chris Antemesaris’ harmonica. ‘Feel The Good’ also features more excellent keyboard work from Fei and ‘We Could All Die Screaming’ is a powerful number, similar to the ‘big music’ of The Waterboys from years ago but with a heavier DNA. ‘Turn It Into Gold’ closes the album and slows thing down as it starts, showcasing the Thomas/Olivia harmony vocals along with Thomas’ guitar playing (which incidentally, is excellent throughout). Halfway through its seven minutes it launches off into heavy rock territory – a surprising twist but one that works really well and it’s here that we get some guitar fireworks. It’s a song that you could easily see stretching to an epic 10-12 minutes when played live.
No doubt this is a record that will reward repeated plays and maybe what is already a really good album might turn out to be a great one as familiarity grows.
9/10
