OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'EDWARDS, JOE'
'Keep On Running'   

-  Label: 'Tiny Mountain Records'
-  Genre: 'Blues' -  Release Date: '22nd May 2020'-  Catalogue No: 'TMRCD10'

Our Rating:
Joe Edwards started out playing covers of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B King before going to study music at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.

He toured Europe as drummer for Australian folk-rock band The Wishing Well but now sets down his marker as a solo artist with a debut album.

The album was recorded Nashville over just 10 days and features his brother Alex Edwards on drums, Jeremy Holmes on double bass, Chris Gestrin on keys and producer Steve Dawson contributes a variety of traditional slide instruments, from dobro to pedal steel.

“I’m driving through an open road, my mind is free, man I feel reborn” Edwards sings on the title track extolling the virtues of a travelling life. Would that the rest of the record had such a celebratory spirit. Instead, the mood is mostly self reflective and downbeat.

For instance, Capital Blues, written whilst working in Egypt, takes a pessimistic look at the country’s poor living conditions.

Beth's Song , a low key homage to his wife, is chosen as the opening tune as though to assert the fact that his marriage is a happy one. Were it not for this you might get the wrong idea from The Gambler and Driving Home, both of which chart relationships falling apart, a fact reinforced by the black and white video for the former.

On top of this, there's the passive aggression of Don't let The Bastards Get You Down which is so sleepy that you begin to wonder if he has sufficient energy to resist his oppressors.

By the time we reach the closing tune, Mine Oh Mine, he is asking himself "when will my dream ever arrive?". Judging by the world weary mood of the record, a hopeful reply to this question doesn't seem likely any time soon.



Joe Edwards' website
  author: Martin Raybould

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



EDWARDS, JOE - Keep On Running