Monthly Archives: October 2006

Review: Ray Lamontagne – Till The Sun Turns Black

03 Tuesday Oct 2006

Posted by in Music Reviews

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Ray LaMontagne - Till The sun Turns BlackI’ve been a little remiss in album reviews of late, so I here a quick look a new album.  In the UK, Ray Lamontagne’s first album has been relaunched four or five times (but the record company never seems to follow through). As a result Trouble has been out for sometime now and the multiple launches has delayed the release of his second album here in the UK, which is a shame as the sequel- Till The Sun Turns Black, seriously eclipses his debut Trouble, not that Trouble was a poor effort, far from it.

 

Till The Sun Turns Black sees Ray’s vocal delivery coming across a little sweeter and a little less dry than on Trouble, and the instrumentation is far richer, running from a Stax/Memphis Horns backing on a couple of tracks to a muted trumpet that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Northern England brass band, then there is the purest simplicity of a guitar and voice (Lesson Learned); then we have a simple string backing on the title track.  The overall effect is that the music carries you along without detracting from the Ray’s vocal performances.

 

This gets lots of thumbs up, you can purchase the album through Amazon – Till The Sun Turns Black.  To add to the joys Ray is touring the UK over the coming months – more information can be found on his website here.

 

 

 

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Shepherds Bush Empire

02 Monday Oct 2006

Posted by in General, Music

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originally uploaded by Phil & Catherine Wilkins.

We finally caught up with Ryan Adams last night at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London. This was our third attempt to catch him live (the first tour got cancelled because Ryan managed to break his arm walking off stage in Loverpool, the second due to ill health).

 

The performance was pretty good, it certainly demonstrated his musicianship & and workaholic rate, as Ryan backed Neal Casal’s support slot on drums, and then his own set wasn’t stopped to mess around with encores, they plaid straight through until the curfew.

 

The band played through a lot of material from the albums last year, with the audience responding particularly well to the material from Cold Roses.

 

The ownly irritation of the evening, was that both Neal and Ryan demonstrated Dylanesque attitudes. Neal, stopped a couple of times to rant at tha audience for talking. Although sympathetic to his case, but people talking whilst you’re performing is par for the course when you’re the support. Then Ryan reacted badly to hecklers later in the show when was talking between songs about the problems of picking up coughs and colds whilst on the road. Think Ryan needs to learn a couple of good put-downs.

 

I managed to capture some pictures on the 3megapixel phone camea (sony ericsson K800i) – a set of which is available on our flickr photoss.

 

Overall, I’d say a band worth seeing.