The Ripped Rivers
Jake Hackett and Jamie Sheerman are The Ripped Rivers. Both are Coventry born and bred.
Their album, ‘Ripped Gratification’, has just been released to something of a critical success, with A & R Factory describing it as an “…absolute masterpiece…”.
I won’t actually argue with that assessment, as the band are definitely onto something here which seems to be happening a lot lately with local bands. Play an album and the pattern is, you are blown away by the first track, and so it goes on for the rest of the album.
No, I’m not complaining, it just shows the wealth of talent there is coming along to excite us.
Ripped Gratification has a beautiful fractured feel to it all. ‘You Know What You’ve Done’ opens the album perfectly, straight away, you know that this is not going to be your average album.
The vocals have a dream-like quality to them. Musically too, it’s all about the atmospherics. ‘Twenty Four Hours’ lays out a funky groove, ‘So, What Are We Gonna Do’ is a rocker, but still the RR magic remains. ‘Forfeit’ is worth the price of the album on its own, with its clever vocal acrobatics.
Then just when you think it can’t get any better, up comes ‘Fireworks’, nearly 15 minutes long. It’s epic in length as it’s epic in its dynamics. With more out-of the-world vocals, it’s an extraordinary song, and a fitting end to an extraordinary album.
Gg
There’s a new album entitled ‘Invisible Ink’ by the band Gg.
Anyone remember the rather wonderful Coventry 80s band The End? It included Mark Harold, Dave Pepper and Dave Gedney.
They performed such songs as ‘Insect Life’ and ‘Panic In The Night’, (as featured on Sent From Coventry album).
Well forget all that, Mark Harold is still making music, though the bitter sting of the new wave has faded away, replaced with the sweet sax driven sound of jazz
in the form of a new album entitled ‘Invisible In’ by the band Gg.
Gg are an eight-piece band, that have been making all the right moves on the jazz and soul scene.
Mark says: ‘We have been getting amazing support from all the soul and jazz radio stations”.
It’s exciting music that Gg create, with Gigi Harold’s superbly executed vocals very much at the core of the whole sound.
It’s hard to put a label on this band. Yeah, of course it’s jazz with an element of ‘chill out’, but that’s just part of the story. The musicianship here is really beyond classification as so many elements combine to give the listener something to really enjoy, and enjoy is really the key word here.
Check out this superb album at www.ggmusiconline.co.uk
