For those of you who don’t know Back Door Slam, I found these guys whilst surfing the net with a google query of Great albums you may have missed this year. There album Roll Away was mentioned on more than one occassion so I decided to check out a couple of their tracks and then just wanted more and more. The lead guitarist and singer Davy Knowles is just 21 but seems to have absorbed the soul of Hendrix probably in a crossroads / Whicker man pact on a cold wintery night on the Isle of Mann, certainly it seems difficult to imagine that such a fabulous talent could be born in mortal man.
‘Coming up for Air’ is the latest stunning album from Davy Knowles and Backdoor Slam, and although the two other members of Backdoor Slam had different ideas of the bands progression and left to pursue other interests, Knowles is the real driving force of the band and with the involvement of Peter Frampton they have created a stunning addition to the back door slam catalogue. I finally added this to my music collection after it has been on my – oh no totally forgot about that list since it’s release and I’m so so glad I did.
I was a little disappointed first play through as Davy has changed somewhat form the traditional hard blues shown on Roll Away and the Back Door Slam EP. The album is somewhat more mellow with a definite touch of Frampton’s more gentle touch. Second play through it’s an absolute tour de force – subtle and melodic in points with a juxtaposition of heavy distorted Hendrixesque rifs on tracks like the epic Tear down the Walls. The album moves effortlessly through these differing elements and styles with Knowles’ mature and expressive guitar playing an underlying constant of brightness, clarity and luminosity.
There is no point going through the tracks one by one – there isn’t a bad one throughout the album, indeed not even a mediocre track and rarely anything that would count as a slight negative. Just read the track list as a string of superlatives and take it from there.
Rating 4.5/5 (only dropped a .5 as I think his next album will be better.)