CBcbaf_2014

UK musician Chris BEVINGTON is an unknown quantity for me, but apparently he’s been around for a good few years as it’s been some time since he could aspire to descriptions such as young and promising from what I understand. Even so he’s not released any albums of his own until 2014, when he self released an album recorded with a number of musician friends, of which several are fairly prominent, appropriately named “Chris Bevington and Friends”.

The album is, from what I understand, a purebred covers album, with Bevington and his friends taking on songs more or less well know originally recorded by others. That the album sounds coherent throughout and that the different songs for the most part gel together rather well says a lot about the level of musicianship I’d guess, as well as for an excellent job done when mixing and producing the album.

The name of the game here is blues rock, and a fairly smooth and modern sounding variety of it at that. At least from what these amateur ears can hear: I’m not a musician, and my knowledge about the good, old blues is rather limited too I’ll readily admit. Still: Many blues albums does tend to bore me ever so slightly, but this isn’t at all the case with this production. Which says something about the quality of this album on a general basis I’d guess.

There’s a fair deal of variety at hand through the 11 songs covered here, with sax (or brass?) accompanying the musicians on the first couple of songs, funky details on the uptempo opening piece Dark Side of Love opening this disc in a compelling manner and the slower paced Let Me Know following up in a nifty and elegant manner with a pumping bass motif establishing a strong nerve and presence on this one. Some Americana and southern rock tendencies makes an appearance too, on tracks such as She’s Out There Somewhere and Blue on Black.

But it’s the midsection of this disc that really elevated the listener experience for me. Was is the most blazing of these, with slide guitars, punchier additional guitar sections and a rougher feel that really gets this one going, and the following triptych Heart of Blues, I Don’t Need No Doctor and Crossroads also maintaining a strong and vibrant atmosphere, each in their own right and own style. The latter two fairly classic compositions of course, so those well versed in the blues might not be quite as thrilled as a novice blues listener like me are on those takes.

The subtly more rockabilly flavored concluding track Party Right Here is just about the only slight letdown for me, an uptempo guitar and piano driven affair that somehow doesn’t fire up the party mood for me, but generally speaking a fine kind of song to choose to conclude an album.

With high quality vocals able to carry the songs and quality musicianship throughout, “Chris Bevington and Friends” comes across as a high quality album to my ears. If you enjoy blues rock with a contemporary and fairly smooth mix and production and you’re able to enjoy quality musicians exploring material more or less well known, then this CD is one worth investigating. I suspect that those most fond of US-sounding blues might be a key audience, as my impression is that the greater majority of the compositions appears to have an orientation towards what I’d describe as a US inspired general sound.

My rating: 85/100