Gary Hall
Album: Warm Valve Glow
Label: Northern Sun
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.garyhallmusic.co.uk

Having spent around 13 years variously fronting British alt-country outfit The Stormkeepers and pursuing a solo career, Hall dropped off the radar for a further eight before finally resurfacing with That Old Brand New, his first solo album in 15 years, followed, in 2013, by Winning Ways On Losing Streaks. That was an acoustic album of old school country that threw up echoes of George and Johnny and was grained with a mix of Texas dust, Appalachian pines and honky tonk fumes, but, while the retro feel is still in evidence, this time round it's a more electric, rougher edged affair that often conjures the Outlaws era ("I wouldn't kiss their ass or toe the line", he sings at one point) and, more especially, Waylon Jennings.

That said, the choppy first track, The Road To God Knows Where, and especially its opening guitar riff, recalls Joe South. A song about the life of a gigging musician ("I got four lanes in my veins"), the theme's carried over into the catchily melodic, but more lyrically wearied Almost Home before, rolling on slide guitar, the slow, soulful Sweet Jesus sees his baritone getting deeper for a number that deals with both religion ("I've seen too many churches but not enough faith") and personal angst ("I stand here accused of breaking us in two") in a way you could imagine Jennings or Cash singing.

In the former track, he declares himself a renegade with a troubled mind, and, still soulful, but in a more country manner, on I'm A Little Crazy (In The Nicest Kind of Way) he sings in a twangy, world-seasoned voice about losing his way searching for himself and not fitting in, of being his own worst enemy who still thinks of himself as twenty five "but cameras never lie". Even so, as the title suggests, there's also acceptance here and, while he may avoid "any social situations where the Conga may break out" and "live inside my little world", he still spends the nights "with friends that never end and songs that soothe the soul." It's a lovely, gently tumbling melody and probably the only song to namecheck Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright.

As per the title, the slow and steady Safe House Blues is a bluesier affair, a song about letting go of the things that weighing you down and finding strength in yourself with Hall in throaty vocal and an all join in chorus incentive. He's bluesy too on the slow burn Where The River Meets The Sea, shades of Memphis soul seeping into the groove in another number about self-reconciliation, before things take on jangle form with The Other Side of Pain (a track which, as a requirement of any good old school country album, gets in the obligatory reference to freight trains), the guitars circling like the vultures mentioned in the lyric.

I don't know whether My Father's Eyes is autobiographical, but it's certainly the album's emotional centerpiece, Hall getting gravelly as he sings about a son and his father who has been blind for fifteen years, though in the final verse he can see again (even so there's a certain ambiguity here as to how).

The album closes out with Dark Clouds Rolling In (which opens with a distant, barely audible vocal) is a straightforward my baby's gone number delivered with a dominant electric guitar, a punchy, rock n rolling (get back in the saddle and) Ride On and, finally, the simple voice and electric guitar bluesy ballad Walking A Straight Line ending on an upbeat (the heart's warm valve glow) note of "it's a world at war and so are we sometimes, but we always make it through." Listening to this, you'll be glad he did too

Mike Davies