Wille And The Bandits
Album: Grow
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.Willeandthebandits.com

A bold, shapeshifting album blending a range of genres with the enduring presence of blues, skilled slide guitar and a passionate, unvarnished vocal from a band whose diversity continues to make them impossible to typecast.

'Must Do Better' is a rousing opener and an apt introduction to Wille's raw vocal and the bands' desire to affront their audience with a great deal of noise. The following track, the slide driven 'Gypsy Woman', is an early highlight as both Wille's vocal and guitar find their best platform in a blues-heavy setting. A combination that is to be revived, perhaps a little less effectively, later in the album on 'Son of the Gun'.

'Try to be yourself' then delivers the band's most articulate social commentary as an initially more refrained vocal gives way to psychedelic instrumentation - tight percussion and double bass from the bandits support Wille Edward's sprawling slide guitar.

A subdued 'Under the Grove' follows before the album changes pace once again to deliver a wandering, slightly amorphous and inevitably genre defying "Butterfly for a Day' before following track 'Still Go Marching In 'calls upon guest vocalist Kat Marsh to turn a pacifist's cry into a gospel hymn complete with handclaps.

'Why d'you do it?' is perhaps where the band's experimentation leads them most astray as they display perhaps only a notional grasp of reggae but there's a welcome return to form around the corner as the aforementioned 'Son of the gun' and the positive 'Keep moving on' again make effective use of the slide guitar.

Album closer 'Angel', recorded and performed in memory of Edward's late Mother, is an 11-minute instrumental showcase of the band's fine musicianship. This final post rock flourish provides a strong, emotive finish to an album that, brave in its intentions and skilled in its execution, entertains from start to finish.

Elliot Watson