Album review : GLENN HUGHES / ROBIN GEORGE – Overcome

Cherry Red [Release date : 24.11.23]

Label wars resulted in the Glenn Hughes / Robin George 1990 album, Sweet Revenge, being confined to the dustbin of rock’n’roll history.

Until now.

Resurrected, remastered and retitled by the UK’s leading reissue label, Cherry Red, we’re now getting the opportunity to hear some compelling rock (and funk rock) from two seriously talented English artists.

They met up post Notorious, in George’s Cannock Studio, while he was recording a few tracks for his imminent solo album. Apparently Hughes liked what he was hearing and soon became part of the writing and recording process.

And so, what was to be a solo Sweet Revenge, became a collaboration between two immense talents, now titled Overcome.

In these days of mediocrity, where even the rock charts are full of nondescript uniformity, this is a breath fresh air. It’s not the best melodic rock album you’ll ever hear, but it aims high, and gets close to the target on most tracks.

Some powerful lyrical images, perfectly spliced with memorable music, bring the album to life immediately. Openers, the sparkling, chiming, faintly Proggy ‘Flying’ and the soulful title track, ‘Overcome’, which slips’n’slides through some old school, loose limbed funk rock grooves, are classy introductions. The latter is the perfect partner to the snake hipped, dance floor dazzler ‘I Want’.

Already we’re impressed, and wondering how bad must label relations have been that allowed this album to be shelved 20 plus years ago.

This is Hughes ten years before he washed the toxins from his system.

And yet, he sounds totally invested in the music, his voice unaffected by “self medication”.

The feverish funk of ‘Sweet Revenge’ and the more commercial, sharper ‘Machine’ are probably the picks on the album’s second half, each bookending the James Brown meets INXS song, ‘The American Way’, a neat rock/funk invention.

On second thoughts, maybe it was best waiting until now to release Overcome. If it had been released when planned, it would no doubt have been sucked into the cultural vacuum that killed off Melodic Hard Rock at the end of the eighties.

Timing is everything. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)