Album review: STRAY – About Time
Pete Feenstra chatted to Del Bromham playing tracks from the album for his show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio. First broadcast 20 August 2023.
Talking Elephant [Release date 15.09.23]
‘About Time’ is Stray’s first new studio album for 13 years and 20th in all. It finds founder member Del Bromham refreshingly breaking new musical ground with his former Stray mucker Pete Dyer (vocals and guitar) on an album overseen and shaped by keyboard playing producer Simon Rinaldo (Pearl Handled Revolver).
It’s an album that rocks hard with Del’s signature riffs, wah wah and contrasting polished solos. And the big production album is given an extra edge by Rinaldo’s Deep Purple, Rainbow and even Uriah Heep influenced riffs, over the thundering rhythm section of drummer Karl Randall and bassist Colin Kempster.
The result is an album of melodic hard rock with occasional prog and symphonic influences.
At its best the album pushes Bromham’s meaningful song narratives into a new bombastic musical environment which helps amplify lyrical meaning and gives the band plenty of room to stretch out.
On the other hand, as on the over extended ‘Shout’ and the portentous sounding ‘Sword Of Damocles’, the arrangements don’t quite fit the musical ambition.
That said, there’s plenty of good stuff to enjoy here, with Rinaldo’s telling presence framing Del’s story telling narratives with an enveloping layered sound, flecked by fleeting Eastern influences and even choral bv’s.
The album title can be interpreted as an obvious reference to the time gap between the ‘Valhalla’ album and this release’. Then again it could equally be about the fact that Del has finally given reign to his melodic sensibilities in a hard rock setting, or as the art work suggest, simply a rumination on the passing of time.
Looking back, Del has spent the last decade building a warmly received solo career in which both of his last 2 albums, ‘Nine Yards’ and ‘White Feather’ were excellent examples of his nascent song craft.
On this album he extends his ability as a story teller by anchoring the songs conceptually to the overarching societal effects of Covid, and his own views on contemporary politics.
The upshot is a heartfelt album with a sense of time and place, rather than just the latest release in the non-stop spotify style conveyor belt.
He opens with the acoustic-into-electric ‘I Am’, which is arguably the best track on the album. Aside from establishing a musical template it lyrically references his ‘Rock & Roll Survivor’ autobiography with a truly great hook: “I am a lion, I am a tiger, I am a rock and roll survivor.”
There’s a regulation big rock wig out on the sing-along chorus of ‘Living The Dream’ before the riff-driven apocalyptic ‘Black Sun’, which veers into a noir filled proggy territory.
There’s a typical Stray style change of pace which leads to a big keyboard-led sweep and some intense guitar and organ riffing.
It all builds to a choral punctuation, before a return to the hook and fade.
In contrast the idiomatic ‘Blood From A Stone’ opens with a double line riff that might have come from Man’s Endangered Species’ album.
The band heads for a big mid-tempo groove and a catchy hook, on one of several fine vocal performances from Del: “Talk is cheap, action’s better, there’s one thing we’ve always known, you can’t get blood from a stone.”
The song flows mellifluously and acts as a conduit between the proggy ‘Black Sun’ and the sitar driven Eastern drone and sludgy Eastern Zeppelin influenced intro to Shout’
It’s one of the few occasion when the animated and an over ambitious musical arrangement muddy the album direction.
Sure there’s a lovely slow building hypnotic Eastern sounding wall of sound at 3.05 and growled out doctored doom rock vocal, but stop-start nature of the song and simple chanted hook sounds a little forced.
Some judicious sequencing means ‘A Better Day’ is everything the preceding track isn’t, benefiting from a subtler wall of sound and more meaningful covid related lyrics which ultimately carry an optimistic bent.
There are several moments on this album when a song starts off in one genre and then surprises us with a change of pace or direction. Such is the case with the slow building ‘Sword Of Damocles’, which is rescued from the mundane by an eerie Mellotron, a rising choral backing and an unexpected staccato organ break, leading to a Zeppelin influenced hypnotic wall of sound.
There’s a Hendrix style wah-wah intro to ‘That Is Not Enough’, another message driven narrative with a curious, but beguiling mix of funky southern rock and soulful influences, while the Golden Earing style power chord and riff-driven ‘Raise Your Hand’ has an anthemic hook as part of a rant against political correctness: “The times now are silently changing, with language I don’t recognise, maybe I’ll stay in my own world, and cover my ears and my hands.”
The album rounds off with the low key ‘Dust In Your Pocket’, a working person’s lament with an unlikely, but totally persuasive gospel and accordion backing.
It’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t be surprised to hear on an adventurous album such as this, which matches Del Bromham’s musical diversity with his band’s inherent ability to rock. ****
Review by Pete Feenstra
Gig review (The 100 Club, London)
Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK
Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.
In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.
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UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This show was first broadcast 29 October 2024.
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S8NT ELEKTRIC XTC (Long Branch Records)
ARCANA KINGS Here We Go (Curtain Call Records)
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REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)
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09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)
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