Blame Sally
Album: Live At KVIEO Studios Volume One
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.blamesally.com

This live concert, recorded in Sacramento for a TV broadcast, succeeds in capturing the verve and spirit of this San Francisco all-female quartet comprising Pam Delgado, Renée Harcourt, Jeri Jones and Monica Pasqual (on this occasion augmented by bassist Rob Strom). At times, more than anything, they remind me of a feistier, rockier version of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac (they even manage to turn in a sweetly-harmonised, if slightly rushed, cover of FM's Never Going Back Again halfway through the set).

The individual singers in the band have an unerring sense of how to deliver their own (mostly self-penned) songs, and their playing is invariably solid, reliable, accomplished, polished and duly crowd-pleasing (the audience are clearly fans). Their stylish and at times quite gutsy mix of country-flavoured rocky-folk is certainly appealing, if at times perhaps just a touch anonymously crafted - but it would all sound good played drivetime…Moodier tracks like Bird In Hand, Throw Me A Bone and If You Tell A Lie, and the predictably exciting Hurricane, arguably provide the most distinctive offerings in the set.

The band can't really be faulted, for they're very good indeed at what they do: a class act, with every element in its rightful place; they stick to what they know they can deliver, and they deliver the goods with more than enough energy to convince you whole-heartedly of their quality. And for the fans, three of the 13 numbers in the set are previously unrecorded songs. Not bad going for a band that's been together for around a dozen years.

David Kidman