Hutchinson has been very active during the Covid years and the result is this – heavy riffs abounding, massive drums and bass lines so thick and viscous you’ll think you’re enveloped in the sound.
Right from the off with ‘Straight To Hell’ you get the feeling that this is a top class rock album and as it continues with the title track there is no respite from the massive sound (and none wanted either).
Jack J Hutchinson has come along way from ‘Paint No Fiction’ (the first encounter) and definitely towards the heavier sounds that are prevalent today, but there is no shortage of melody and tune on this album and it’s easy to see how far he has come as a songwriter as well as performer.
There are a few points on the album where his love for harmony lifts what could be too dense a sound and he solos sparingly but very effectively for all that. His influences from bands like Sabbath and the Seattle Grunge scene break out now and then but it adds to the music and, for a three piece, they have surprising layers to the music. He even manages a superb ballad on ‘Angel Of Death’ and I would swear that he is reaching notes that were outside his compass a couple of years ago.
It really is a joy to hear an artist becoming and not just following the trends. It is, in many ways, a breakthrough album and for my portion it deserves to be the album that opens him to a massive audience.
