The Soledad Brothers - The Hardest Walk (Polydor) By Steve Rudd Release Date: March 6th 2006.

Potentially the perfect support band for any future Rolling Stones tour, these three lads that make up The Soledad Brothers are such a talented trio that they seem to be leaving most Blues-based rock 'n' roll bands in their wake right now, especially on the back of this astonishing twelve-track album that runs for almost an hour. Opening cut Truth Or Consequences is a riff-raring affair and means that this LP starts as it means to go on: constantly surprising and thrilling the listener.

Many of the songs have been part-inspired by one of the member's break-up with a girlfriend, so some tracks are appropriately quite dark and bleak in nature, but never depressing to the casual listener. Instead, the slower-paced and more intimate numbers are tender-hearted and entrancing, particularly their Dark Horses number which is beautifully haunting too, into the bargain. The harder-edged Downtown Paranoia Blues deals directly with the breakdown of a relationship (I'm afraid... I'm afraid I'm gonna find her downtown), while Crying Out Loud proves to be a slower lament about love lost that borders on being a bourbon-soaked waltz.

All three members are hugely talented multi-instrumentalists, with Johnny Walker fronting the band on lead vocals and guitar. Oliver Henry is seemingly the man with most instruments at hand that he can actually play, with him taking a turn on fuzz piano, saxophone and flute amongst other things as and when necessary throughout the album, leaving Ben Swank to set down the backbeats on drums and congas.

Whilst The Soledad Brothers' sound does acknowledge the music of The Rolling Stones hook, line and sinker, this band still has enough of an original edge to mark them out, as their Mean Ol' Toledo tune could have come out of the Appalachian mountains (given its Country twang) in bewitching style.

The single release in Good Feeling, meanwhile, is such an upbeat and feel-good anthem that The Hardest Walk in its entirety is a pleasure to experience. The band has marked the release of this album with a short but sweet UK tour, which culminated at the London Barfly. If you've seen them, mark yourself as being very lucky indeed, for The Soledad Brothers are brothers that you'd be proud to call family. soledadbrothers.com

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