This is 3 Mile Shout’s second album and I must apologise for missing it towards the end of 2025 – it is good enough though to be worth taking a look at a couple of months later.
The band are a three piece with a lot of history in the music business – Richard Mainwaring on percussion, Richard Woodfin on guitar & Richard Hewlet on bass and lead vocals – and a lot of their own ideas about music.
Their music is Blues based but dark and moody in the main, with lots of angular rhythms and guitar passages and Hewlett’s deep and breathy vocals in the fore. I have always found that music made using a fretless bass has a really dense groove to it and after listening and being impressed by the fluid and deep roove in their music I was pleased to find that Hewlett’s favourite bass is, in fact, a Fender Fretless Jazz Bass.
‘Taking My Time’ perfectly shows the care and precision the band use to create a sense of dark and deep rhythm.
Wily Bo Walker guests on one number ‘Café De Los Muertos’, his voice fitting perfectly into the album’s feel.
There are guest appearances from Mandy Bell (‘Lost Her Heart’) and Pete Dugdale on keys but the core band are really the feature here.
It is an album I came to late, but it is one that I have already put in the rack for regular listening. That ‘Difficult Second Album’ is actually a triumph.
