Self Release [Release date: 14.03.25]

The Davidson Trio’s ‘Cougar’ is a booming, well crafted, hard rock and blues album with a funky soulful heart.

It’s a winning combination of timeless songs, great playing and ‘live in the studio’ organic feel.

From the opening riff driven ‘Medusa Touch’ – a bulldozer of a track – to the reworked book-end of ‘Catfish Blues’, The Davidson Trio resurrect the interwoven historic roots of The Black Country in general, and Trapeze in particular, on an album of groove-led hard rocking blues.

And 55 years after Trapeze so narrowly missed breaking big, The Davidson Trio pull out all the stops to remind us just how good an excellent power trio can be

If you’ve ever wondered how a trio can sometimes sound so big, the answer is provided here by 3 stellar musicians who articulate the rudiments of the power trio format.

There’s a blizzard of extended chords, incendiary lead guitar and a lilting bass lines from a vocalist who effortlessly hits the notes with a soulful feel.

Put simply, when there’s nowhere to hide, you have to have both the chops and the material, and ‘Cougar’ has that in spades.

‘Medusa Touch’ plays to the band’s strengths of subtle, but intense interplay topped by majestic vocals and Ben Bicknell intense riffs.

The album flows, sparkles and ultimately rocks out, over deep funky grooves and a bluesy undertow, while Owen Davidson’s 5 -octave voice almost demands he spreads his musical influences around.

With a history including Uli Jon Roth and Rumour, its no surpise that his muscular bass playing glues everything together while his peerless vocals always play to the strengths of the songs. And what songs they are!

So while the band is not here to reinvent the wheel, they restate long forgotten values, too often obfuscated by an endless stream of American led razzle dazzle.

Make no mistake, The Davidson Trio is proud of itsWest Midlands heritage, while Owen Davidson’s bass and vocal combination will always draw comparisons with his musical hero Glenn Hughes.

There’s an undoubted swagger to the title track which musically makes a direct connection between music and geography.

It might be a Stone Age homage to older women, and the opening vocal on the track has been humorously compared to Barry White singing the blues, but even the big man himself would love to have owned this piece of phasing on a great album opener.

And as Davidson sings “I’m coming through”, flanked by Ben Bicknell’s crashing chords and two piercing solos over a drum tight rhythm section, you quickly realise you are in the presence of a great hard rock band.

There are plenty of angular riffs, ferocious solos and enveloping grooves, but also musical diversity, as on the burgeoning ‘Hold On’, complete with a ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ feel.

Each track pulls you into the next one and by the time of the very ‘live in the studio’ ‘The Cure’, we’re back to fuzzy riffs, funky chords and a stop-time vocal.

There’s even room for a bluesy shuffle called ‘The Deep’, which might owe its position as the second track on the album due to the way it subliminally makes you think of the late Gary Moore.

Suffice it to say Bicknell fills his shoes admirably.

Perhaps the really great thing about ‘Cougar’ is that it works both as an album as a whole, and also with download culture style stand alone tracks.

Whatever the format, the music draw you in, especially the Bicknell vibrato-led intensity of ‘Blue River’, which also act as a foil for Davidson cool vocal.

They finish with an up tempo version ‘Catfish Blues’, which they attack with vim and vigour to transform it into something far more essential, as they jam briefly and work towards an explosive finale on which drummer Ellis Brown is imperious.

The Davidson Trio brings credibility back to the power trio format. ‘Cougar’ is a fresh, vibrant, and a very welcome slice of primo rocking blues.

The future looks bright, the future is Brummie. ****

Review By Pete Feenstra

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 1 December 2025

We feature all the artists selected in this sequence in 2025.

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