With all the fuss and ado being made about every young “saviours of rock” band that springs up fully-formed every 18 months or so, one thing often gets overlooked – the dozens, nay hundreds, of old school rockers who’ve been keeping the flame alive since forever.
Electric Mary is one of those bands, and Mother is cast-iron proof they haven’t forsaken the spirit of rock and roll. “Gimme Love” enters the fray with a big blues-rock swagger, the perfect accompaniment to Rusty Brown’s warm rasp, winding up with a ripping guitar solo that takes up about half the track. The next song steps up the pace and the rock factor as Electric Mary pulls on a different guise with every track, from foot-stomping rockers like “The Way You Make Me Feel” to the sprawling blues-rock ballad “Sorry Baby” and the free-styling “It’s Alright”. On the brooding, epic “Long, Long Day” the band slides into a heavy groove, verging on metal territory with its powerful delivery and Mother finishes the way it begins, with a full-on belter in the shape of “Woman”.
It doesn’t matter which gear Electric Mary drops into, every track here is a sure-fire scorcher, resplendent with booming drums, blazing guitar leads and Brown’s blues-soaked rock wail. Forget the pretenders and the up-and-comers: this is an album for lovers of all things heavy and hard.
- Gimme Love
- Hold Onto What You Got
- How Do You Do It
- Sorry Baby
- The Way You Make Me Feel
- It’s Alright
- Long, Long Day
- Woman