Full of melody and instrumentation (with guest appearances from X-Ray Specs’ Dave Wright on sax and the odd bit of guitar from Mick Jones), it nevertheless keeps to a core principal – good, tuneful, bluesy punk songs about life, written from a very personal day-to-day perspective. Muscatt’s clean, sweet and almost childlike vocal conveys the truthful but still optimistic message of the record, backed by the part soulful and part banshee Phillips.

Comprising of ten home-spun truths, it’s pretty obvious where these two call home. Taking in the Notting Hill Carnival (Lucky), describing local gigs (West London Rock n Roll) and name-checking Portobello and Ladbroke Grove amongst others, this is a band that wear their postcode on their sleeve. And there’s nothing wrong with that. They always say write about what you know, and what better way to express a universal truth than a home-spun yarn.

With the nucleus of the band being guitar and drums, the White Stripes comparisons are perhaps inevitable, and justified in moments on tracks like Bag for Life and Temporary, but the take is overwhelmingly more British than that. More suitable contemporaries in modern blues, punk and soul would perhaps be bands like Saint Jude or the Bermondsey Joyriders, and even (in some of the guitar stomps) a bit of Pussycat and The Dirty Johnsons.

My only complaint would be some of the sax parts – whilst I love sax in rock n roll songs, there are a few bits that go a bit ‘Jazz Club’ (21 Miles to a Water Pump), but its relatively controlled and still adds more than it detracts. Great fun overall, and definitely one you want to stick on repeat.

www.taurustrakker.co.uk

These include tracks from their 1970’s debut “Black Sabbath” and follow up “Paranoid”, 1971’s “Master Of Reality”, 1972’s “Volume 4”, 1973’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and 1978’s “Never Say Die”. It will be released through Sanctuary on the 4th June 2012.

Full Tracklisting (including original albums)

1 – Paranoid (Paranoid)
2 – Iron Man (Paranoid)
3 – Changes (Volume 4)
4 – Fairies Wear Boots (Paranoid)
5 – War Pigs (Paranoid)
6 – Never Say Die (Never Say Die)
7 – Children Of the Grave (Master Of Reality)
8 – The Wizard (Black Sabbath)
9 – Snowblind (Volume 4)
10 – Sweet Leaf (Master Of Reality)
11 – Evil Woman (Don’t Play Your Games) (Black Sabbath)
12 – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath)
13 – Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath)
14 – N.I.B. (Black Sabbath)

Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler recently announced they are reuniting as Black Sabbath and recording a new album. They are scheduled to perform a headlining slot at the Download Festival on Sunday 10th June. For more information and tickets please see www.downloadfestival.com. The band are also playing a warm up show at the Birmingham 02 Academy on 19th May (Sold Out).

What we have here is a slice of prog rock, with some heavy tinges, and some great melodies. All of that is backed up by a damn fine rock vocalist (that would be Lance by the way), in fact the vocals at times are very reminiscent of one of the finest rock vocalists ever, namely Geoff Tate of Queensryche.

Musically, it’s a heavy slab of an album, where everything seems to be amped up, and accentuated. It’s hard to explain, but as a collective work, it’s far greater than the sum of it’s parts. The songs themselves are intricately put together, with clinical precision, and seem to have been crafted from the ground up. This adds to the overall feel of the album, and it makes it seem huge.

There is a lot going on here, and if you take the time to listen to it properly, the experience is very intense. It’s full of peaks and troughs, and it will leave you feeling quite breathless. It will easily fill your head with sound, until it feels almost fit to burst, which is the mark of good prog rock. Now I don’t profess to be a huge prog fan, as there is quite a lot of it that I don’t like. I won’t get into the politics of musical taste, but this album is definitely one that I like. While it’s a prog album of sorts, there’s never too much of the same thing. It keeps things moving along at a nice pace, it never gets bogged down, and has enough twists and turns to hold your interest.

I’d never even heard of Lance King until this album landed in my lap, quite by accident as it happens, but I’m really happy that I have now, as this album is extremely rewarding. Give it a listen, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.