Something has happened to Danny Bryant and I would say that, musically, it is all to the good – this album is exactly as its name says, a ‘Revelation’.
On ‘Big’ we heard what Danny could do when horns and keyboards were added to his mix and now this one shows just what he is capable of. Without any question this is his strongest studio album yet.
The sound has always been impassioned and emotive but here he seems to have developed a new maturity that sees him instructing rather than pleading and accusing rather than asking for absolution. I would suggest that much of the change is due to the passing of his father with whom he had a close relationship.
Bryant says that “I was struck with a deep depression and crippling anxiety and in times like this I have always found salvation within music. So these songs are dark in subject matter, they are about isolation, despair, and dark times. They question things that I previously had never considered.”
The title track starts with a piano line before his vocal comes in with a bellow of the word “Revelation” – it is a heart stopping moment. The track continues with a diatribe against those who are destroying souls and the world. His guitar is massive, the piano continues in the background and producer Richard Hammerton plays a Hammond underneath his vocal that is just chilling. When the trumpet comes in before the chorus it adds such a human texture to the song that you are taken to places that you never expected Danny Bryant to take you.
It isn’t all about darkness and depression or about huge power, it isn’t just dirges and crying into the dark, there are moments of quiet beauty in the album too but this is a man laying his soul out across the grooves. When he solos on ‘Isolate’ there is heartache in the notes but love too and he softens his vocal a touch.
John Mellencamp’s ‘Someday The Rains Will Fall’ is just Bryant with an acoustic guitar and Hammerton’s keyboards and still passioned and powerful for all that while ‘Truth Or Dare’ brings the whole Big team together with rollicking riff and horns to die for – Bryant showing that he still enjoys playing Blues.
Bryant again “Musically speaking, this album features my core band alongside the members of my full 9-piece Big Band, a project which I love touring with. It’s great to hear the brass and keys on these songs, they add new and rich textures and I find myself feeling musically more refreshed, inspired and dedicated than I have for many years.”
‘Sister Decline’ is the 1st number to be issued from the album and the heavy, thudding bass line and braying horns really sum up where Danny Bryant is now.
I have been watching Danny Bryant develop from his days in the Red Eye Band and he has been growing with release after release but I never saw this album coming. Brilliant – endof.
