Simon McBride

I first encountered Simon McBride a couple of years ago, playing support for the likes of Ian Siegal and Derek Trucks and I enjoyed his first album ‘Rich Man Falling’ – but he was hardly setting the world alight, especially since he had been Young Guitarist of The Year in 1995 and had the likes of Paul Reed Smith (PRS) behind him. I was worried too when I saw that he will be supporting Joe Satriani in September/October so I approached this album with some reservations.

Now I am a very confused individual because this album is simply superb and far more than I thought he was good for.

From the opening ‘thwwwwanngg’ of ‘Take My Hand’ his guitar work impresses mightily – his slide work especially – and his vocals seem to have become harder and more focussed but the song is a real ass-kicker and then leading into ‘Hell Waters Rising’ with some huge, doom laden playing and howling organ sound he moves right into Ian Siegal/Omar Kent-Dykes territory – this one will be a monster on stage. ‘Down To The Wire’ does have a touch of the ‘Gary Moore’s’ about it but his vocal is so much more powerful than Moore delivers these days that you can forgive him for it, especially as he follows up with a red-hot piece of boogie in ‘Be My Baby’. ‘The Promise’ has a real Tex-Mex Desert feel to it with some lonely and beautiful slide playing in the intro and then the belting ‘Dead Man Walking’ forces its way at you.
The whole album feels tighter and more purposeful than before – the songs for ‘Reich Man Falling’ took years to come together but these were written in a year or so and it shows. He also seems to have developed very suddenly as a song-writer and guitarist of the 1st rank and there is a real feeling of a man who has discovered the confidence to just go out and play – Richard Pavitt co-produced and has mentored him for a year or so.

He is playing a few solo gigs in November and on the basis of this they are not to be missed.