6FearS7 - 'Little Green Box - ep' (self released) 4.5/5

I first discovered Bristol funk rockers 6Fears7 about a year back, playing in the back room of a local pub as part of a local street festival. I blagged a copy of their debut ep, 'The Sky Turned Black' which received a fair bit of airplay on the show, and their single Break Me Down became a listener fave later in the year on its release, becoming the 'earworm' featured track for September 2011. Since then the band have been gigging heavily all over the UK and are now hitting us with this their brand new four track ep.

Now the bands mission statement reads, '6FEARS7 want nothing more than you, on your feet, dancing your tits off.' and listening to this ep it's not hard comply with their wishes. This ep is a superb nugget of rock infused high energy funk that bounces into your ears like a hyper active puppy and sets your body mind and soul dancing along on waves of pure infectious energy.


It kicks off with Fetch The White Coats, a cut that the Greg Badman /  Michael Goodman rhythm section drives into a sweet funky frenzy that sounds a little like Parliament jamming with Primus and Blind Lemon coming in on the chorus. And it just gets better. Dirty Town (Northampton) is a sleazy little slow funk work out that bops along with a joyous beat that perfectly counterpoints the sneering downbeat lyrics. On Your Knees kicks off with a riff thats pure James Brown and intermixes it with some guitar work from Tom Agg that is dripping Led Zep style classic rock sensibilities; and the ghetto strut of closer Indignation features a killer vocal delivery from  Tamsin Cullum and has hints of early Faith No More about it. All great stuff indeed.

All in this another great ep from one of Bristols most promising outfits. I can see big things ahead for this band, oh yes, definitely one to watch.

Bloody great!!

for fans of... Primus, Faith No More, Parliament, George Clinton, James Brown etc.....

Sunstorm - 'Emotional Fire' (frontiers) 3/5

This is the third studio album from Sunstorm, the latest project from former Rainbow / Deep Purple frontman Joe Lynn Turner, a guy who was perhaps one of the the most distinctive voices of the 1980's. Now I was a huge Rainbow fan back in the day, and whilst I did tend to prefer the Dio fronted version of Blackmores boys, Mr Turner did much to win me over, especially on the Straight Between The Eyes album, and I even like that album he did with Purple. So whats this one like then?

Well I'll confess that I'm finding this one enjoyable rather than mindblowing. This is nothing to do with Mr Turners vocals, his power, range and distinctive inflections are all still here and just as engaging as they were back in the early 80's. However the rest of Sunstorm are most definitely not Rainbow, they do try and in a few places such as tracks like The Higher Your Rise and Torn In Half they almost succeed in invoking the ghost of the Difficult to Cure album, but a lot of the rest of this album sounds a little like a Journey or Foreigner tribute band. Thats not to say this record isn't well played and produced by talented musicians, it's just that I've always preferred to hear Mr Turner when he leans on it a bit and belts them out, but on many of the songs on offer here, such as Emily, Follow Your Heart and Lay Down In Your Arms Sunstorm tend to be content to cruise along in AOR safe mode and as a result Mr Turner never gets out of third gear and his power and talent is a little wasted. The result is to me at least a fair bit of listener frustration, I know Sunstorm are a good band, I just wish they would lean on it a bit more and give Mr Turner some good old school rock he can really get his throat around.

Still, this is an old 80's headbanger talking, and I'm sure stadium rock nuts will find a lot here to satisfy them. Horses for courses and all that.

Competent, but nothing too special

For fans of.... Journey, Foreigner, House Of Lords, Work Of Art, Mecca.....