![[Image]](../../Images/mouthofclay1.jpg)
Tracks:
- Made Of Lead
- Cutting My Loss
- Hear The Coming
- Burned
- Perfect World
- With Your Bones
- Overflow
- An Eye In Each Corner
- Morning Flight
- Rush
- Eleven Seas
Label: n/a
Producer: n/a
Year: 2001
Total Playing Time: 60:29 m:s
Review date: 19/02/2002
Web site: www.mouthofclay.com
Email: mouthofclay@hotmail.com
Rating: 75 %
Verdict: Retro rockers show promise despite a budget recording
How do like your rock stars? Clean cut & baggy trousers? Denim & Leather? Spandex & Perms? Spikey Hair & bondage trousers? Make-up & Glitter? Long Hair & Flares? Did you say yes to long hair & flares? Well, I'm sure Mouth Of Clay certainly would. Despite their decidedly trendy name, Mouth Of Clay are retro rockers with their roots in 70s music.
Judicious reading elsewhere at mswings.com will reveal that my interest in rock music really happened around the late 70s and early 80s with the NWOBHM. A major influence was the Friday Rock Show on BBC Radio 1. As well as playing all the then newer stuff by Def Leppard, Saxon, Maiden etc, the show used to feature classic rock tracks and sessions. Typical bands would be Uriah Heep, Mountain, Deep Purple, Man, Led Zep etc. Being a poor student in those days I couldn’t afford to buy albums, so I used to tape the Friday Rock Show. I still have many of those tapes kicking around.
When I put the Mouth of Clay CD in the player it was a total nostalgia trip. Not only does Mouth Of Clay remind me of those bands, but the sound quality is such that it actually sounds like those old tapes - muffled and bass heavy. To be fair to Mouth Of Clay they did warn me that the sound quality was rough and ready and the objective was simply to capture the essence of the band, rather than create a major PR tool.
The CD starts with a Zep meets Coverdale era Purple bluesy workout called "Made Of Lead" (maybe that should have been Led?). This is followed by the slow blues rock of "Cutting My Loss". On "Hear The Coming" that big Purple sound comes to the fore with the Hammond swirling around nicely. This one made me sit up and take notice. There is a hint of Uriah Heep to "Burned", so it isn't the Purple rip-off you might have expected from the title.
There is more Purple on "Perfect World" and these tracks are the ones that are grabbing my attention. "With Your Bones" reminds me of Led Zep, but to these ears Mouth Of Clay capture a more authentic blues feeling than I recall hearing from Zep. On "Overflow" the band edge more towards Whitesnake than Purple. For "An Eye In Each Corner" the band adopts a "Dazed & Confused" style phased guitar sound. It is time to sit cross-legged on the floor in the dark and let the sound waves wash over you. Who mentioned drugs?
A good Ian Paice impersonation starts "Morning Flight", but by this stage the songs are starting to all sound similar. Just as my attention starts to wander, the band changes the formula slightly. This track has more of a rhythm to it and is sort of a blues/boogie workout that make me thing of George Thorogood and Rory Gallagher. Another change for the final track with is a lightweight blues track with a vague country flavor that actually makes me think of Molly Hatchett.
When listening to the album a pattern emerges - when the organ is to the fore MOC sounds like Purple and when it is in background Led Zep. Purple's "Made In Japan" album is one of my fave albums and as a result the more Purple-esque tracks are the highlights. (Interesting aside - I recently listened to Purple's "Live In Japan" album which contains the full length versions of the concerts edited to compile "Made In Japan". Ritchie Blackmore fluffs "Smoke On the Water"'s riff in two of the concerts, so they were left with only one version of use on "Made In Japan". Ah, another hero knocked off his pedestal!) I think the band have potential and I certainly would like to hear what they sound like on a better quality recording where more of the dynamics of the music are in evidence.
