Your Word Is Fire

It is Right To Rebel is an exciting and thought provoking new record from Mat Callahan & Yvonne Moore and friends. The double LP consisting of 15 tracks are mostly rooted in the folk music tradition with the unifying elements of rhythm, group singing and acoustic music…

The Lens is a band that consist of some members of IQ; Martin Orford, Michael Holmes and Paul Cook. The roots of the band apparently go all the way back to the mid 70's, even if this, their first album, A Word In Your Eye, was released in 2001. The Lens is thus both a pre-IQ band and a side-project. The songs are all instrumental with exception of Childhood's End which contains a bit of vocals done by Martin Orford. A very nice track this by the way with very fine sax play by Tony Wright. The rest of the tracks are all just about of the same quality but not really in the same style. Most of the songs are calm and ambient (with a touch of prog folk in some occasions) but some are more energetic, at least for parts of them. Like Frost and Fire for instance where first half of the song is quiet and second half (as title suggests) much more spicy.

Countless country artists have borrowed sounds and production tricks from rock music. Brantley Gilbert takes it further, drawing on heavy metal’s menacing guitar riffs, snarling, low-slung vocal delivery, and theatrical sense of danger to amplify the personal and spiritual stakes of his songs. On his fifth album, Fire & Brimstone, he once again plays the part of a small-town ruffian who chases wild times but wrestles with his conscience and surrenders to his tender side.