London Garage Soul duo return with 3rd album HAUNTED HEART released on Damaged Goods!
More Memphis, more Fuzz, more greasy foot-beating, party-greeting, soul-treating maximum RnB. And yes, more Cowbell.
Jack Sandham (Guitar/Keys/Vox) and Wednesday Lyle (Drums/Vox) have straddled the Atlantic with the beat stampede of their songbook so far, but Haunted Heart sees them walk down the dark end of the street, drawing on Atlantic-era Ray Charles and Dusty, while still keeping on creeping on with the sweaty-hand shaky-knee Garage rock ear-worms.
From the Sun Studio, Cramps-like swagger of the title track, to the paranoid Coasters swing and Doors-keys of None Of Your Business, Jack’s urgent vocals yelp out from the first needle drop, stepping aside for Wednesday’s wink of the eye on the Holly Golighty/Black Lips femme-fatale fury of Downlow, which sounds like it’s been ripped straight from the beating heart of the Fillmore during the Summer Of Love.
Produced by the band themselves at Soup studios in Limehouse, London, their early raw bare-bones sound has now been fully expanded with Jack’s sandpaper grit guitars and Wednesday’s freight train rhythms chased down with some glitchy synths and vintage organs (Doom train/Neon blue) as well as a drop of Delta gospel Blues on Nothing But Trouble (also incidentally the first Cowbell song ever to actually feature a Cowbell).
Otis and Pickett-era horns breathe seductively into the swampy-stomp of What Am I Supposed To Do, while New Kind Of Love tiptoes onstage with its alluring smokey jazz piano as Wednesday brings a beautifully casual Peggy Lee type Fever to the microphone.