On April 28, 2023, MIKE ROSS will release his rock-influenced, 12-track album, Third Eye Open.
The Preacher, the first song taken from the album as a single, is really weighty but completely enjoyable. Darren Lee’s drumming and Derek Randall’s bass notes add dark intensity to a song that is already as hefty as a cruiser, while guest vocalist Jack J Hutchinson’s supporting tones make the mood richer and more complicated.
The song is a swampy, coarse-grained stomper with funky hotrod guitars, slabstones of rhythm, and passionate and expressive vocals.
Ugly Brain (video shared below) is a churning rock rumble of cross currents and deadly-irresistable squelch-driven riffs and beats. The pulsatory vocal is mesmerizing and the slide-guitar play is maddenlingly scrumptious.
the slide-guitar play is maddenlingly scrumptious…
Raw Ramp Music Magazine
Three of the songs on the album: Eulogy, (Be With You) Tonight, and Never No More were initially commissioned by supporters of Mike’s crowdfunder project (to remake his older songs, written in the 90s). Eulogy is a great clout of roughcast sandstock guitars, with a bedstone of almost spoken word, and boundless roughly hewn musicianship through out the mighty piece.
(Be With You) Tonight is a tenderly munificent blues duet with luminescent guitar and delicate and forgiving voices. While Never No More has a lamenting country-rock feel, with a melancholic sensibility (throughout) and an undercurrent of mellow jetlaggy sleeplessness.
File alongside: James Gang, Barnstorm
Head over to https://shop.mikerossmusic.co.uk/ to grab the album.
Words: @neilmach 2023 ©
Photos: Rob Blackham
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