Maintaining the production team from previous album Second Sun, Buffalo Summer are developing into an increasingly formidable heavy blues-rock outfit if tracks like Dark Valentine from this latest album are anything to go by.
There’s a subtle Seattle-flavoured, noir-ish melancholia at work in the atmospherics and brilliant cinematic closer Pilot Light, otherwise it’s business as usual – strident, bold and passionate classic rock in the vein of Free, Whitesnake and Lynyrd Skynyrd, with guitarist Jonny Williams coming up with the riffy goods time and again.
The Bukowski-quoting Deep Water, The Bitter End (featuring R.E.M.’s Pete Buck) and When You Walk Away all boast cracking choruses and plenty of cocky swagger, but it’s with tunes like the terrific Last To Know (featuring Buck on mandolin) that the band surprise with the depth of their songwriting.
Desolation Blue surely points the way to greater riches still.
