Howl And The Pussycat

Snowy White is one of a handful of classic blues-orientated British electric guitar players - musicians whose sound, technique and style has echoed the originality of the blues with the excitement of contemporary rock.

Clocking in at 26 minutes, Weather feels more like an EP than an LP, but there's a reason for the brevity. While Huey Lewis & the News were completing their first album of original material in nearly 20 years, Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, an affliction that effects hearing. Meniere's meant Huey could no longer hear notes clearly, which meant that he had to retire from performing, which in turn meant that the music the News completed for their new album would in effect be their final album. Since Huey Lewis & the News wrote and recorded Weather without planning it as a goodbye, the album has a light, breezy tone, and that amiability is actually a fitting farewell for a group who always were a hard-working rock & soul combo.

Tinderbox is the most musically up-tempo of all Siouxsie and the Banshees' albums and the most stylistically consistent one since The Scream and Join Hands. Most of the selections here feature urgently rocking drumming, drivingly aggressive yet fully textured guitar playing, and masterful, gutsy singing. The songs here are intense and unfold slowly, some starting off less vigorously but becoming hard rockers further along. There is of course a fine line between consistency and lack of contrast, but this album stays firmly on the side of the former; in fact, there's a certain satisfying feel to the musically uniform wall of sound here. The arrangements are less complex than in immediately preceding albums, but there are still plenty of subtle, effective production touches to be found throughout, most notably in the song "Cannons." "Cities in the Dust," a dance-pop number with a bell-like synthesizer opening section, stretches the above-mentioned boundaries the most, though typically bleak lyrics keep this selection from any sense of vacuity. This excellent release is well worth purchasing.

Promo CD for two albums in Demon Records' re-issue campaign of the mighty Elvis Costello back catalogue. 1994 promo sampler includes highlights from the 1994 reissues of Almost Blue (1981) and Imperial Bedroom (1982).

Somehow the grandfather of British blues still had the fire in his belly to record a strong album almost 40 years after he began his storied career. Buddy Whittington acquits himself well as the latest in a long line of hotshot guitarists for this multi-instrumentalist, who still does his best work on harmonica. He still admires long-dead bluesman J.B. Lenoir, including "Voodoo Music" here. A lot of credit for this strong outing goes to R.S. Field, lyricist and sometime producer for Webb Wilder. "Long Story Short" would pass for a Wilder tune were it not for Mayall's distinctive voice.