Website [Release date 04.09.26]

Before I get started on the album, I just want to say that given good management and keeping their shit together Wood Burnt Red could be massive. You just know something special when you hear it, and these boys are that special.

You wouldn’t know they are British, they have obviously been immersed in US country deep. The single Fire Me Up is just playing at the moment and my head is rocking and my feet are tapping unconsciously. I’ve already reviewed this song so apart from saying it is a shitkicker of a song I’ll leave it there.

They are a great amalgamation of country rock, Southern rock, and Americana, with a topping of UK swagger.

There is nothing bad about this band or their songs. Tom Franklin has a voice like Bob Segar or Gregg Allman, one of those worn in, fried, soaked baritone growls which sits so well with this kind of music. His guitar work wraps neatly around Rob Graneys lead guitar. Every bass note which Russ Staples plucks is chosen for maximum effect with Ed Baldwins drumming. They are a cohesive symbiotic unit with the confidence of an adolescent teenager strutting down the street knowing the world is in the palm of their hands.

Kicking off with Best Things, the latest single, a song about keeping up with Jones’s whilst struggling to make ends meet. It’s an excellent introduction to the band as individuals and things just get better.

They are not all rockers, they have an equally effective tender side, like Every Road, and Simple Place, a lament about the world full of hate and bringing kids up in it, trying to guide them as best you can, and wanting to get back to a more loving and innocent time. I’ll second that emotion

Drifting is a song about depression and how it can creep up unexpected. A piano led confessional, Tom says it was a hard one to write and hard to perform, but hopes that even it only makes one person fell less alone it was worth it.

Tom has great turn of phrase, non better than on Time’s A Healer, a song about karma, when he declares I got a front row ticket to watch you go down in flames. Ooooh! stinging.

Every time the last track Where You Are Now finishes I am waiting like a dog for a bone for the next track. I can hear this track being belted out in arenas with the crowd singing back. I sincerely hope this happens. Maybe C2C for a start.

Four times I’ve restarted the album, not something I do often. This bunch of lifelong friends deserve another lifelong career at the top of this fickle music business. Elles Bailey says they are the UK’s answer to The Brothers Osborne, I say they are the UK’s answer to everything. *****

Review by Andy Sharrocks

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 31 August 2026

JEFFERSON STARSHIP Jetpack (indie)
SHOGUN MOJO Under The Gun (Frontiers)
NOT MY WIFE Best Friend (indie)
BEN POOLE Time Has No Mercy (Gypsy Soul Records)
NIGHT TALKS Window Shopping (indie)
CHEZ KANE One Day (Is All That It Takes) (Frontiers)

Featured Albums w/c 31 August 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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