Blind Melon
For My Friends

Sometimes they come back...

It's been 13 years since Shannon Hoon's death when, at the beginning of this 2008, the other members of the band decide to resume the adventure interrupted with the beautiful and underrated "Soup".

The legacy is heavy because the peculiarity of Blind Melon, despite the notable instrumental ability of the musicians, revolved around the unique, high-pitched, heartfelt, and "magical" voice of Shannon.

Replacing him, in this "For my Friends," we find Travis Warren from Rain Fur Rent, a voice also flexible and capable of great high notes like his predecessor.

This is immediately noticeable with "Wishing Well", an energetic track where the story seems to coherently resume from where it was interrupted many years before.

Warren touches Hoon's chords, the similarity becomes immediately evident, although a bit strained in the high parts, where Shannon held the tone without much effort and, once he chose the reference octave, he managed to remain there excellently to "play" with his voice.

The Melons' proposal remains always unchanged, as if time had not eroded or affected the creativity: chord and guitar weave so genius in their simplicity, a compositional taste above average, little room left for virtuosity, in my opinion unnecessary for the proposed style,   drums and bass always compelling, sounds perfectly blended.

Hard rock cavalcades with a Zeppelin-like taste alternate, like "Down on the Pharmacy", to ballads winking towards a more psychedelic approach eager to explore new stylistic solutions   ("With the Right Set of Eyes").

The nostalgic "For my Friends" is an anthem to friendship and the pleasure of moments spent together, "Last Laugh", an acoustic/electric experiment, highlights the vocalist's abilities who reaches, in the finale, truly enviable tones.

"Tumblin Down" revisits the indie/folk canons distinctly dear to the band, here the similarity to the style of the late singer is felt quite a lot, as in "So High", while choirs and vocal solutions, with openings that recall something of the Liverpool moptops, and somewhat Manzarek-like keyboards are the backbone of the enjoyable "Sometimes".

Noteworthy is the beautiful "Hypnotized", whereas if you are looking for power and raw energy, you can find them in "Make a Difference", a solid rock piece with a profusion of drums and guitars, combined with Warren's truly evocative and emotional voice accompanying the final solo of the instrumentalists with a surprising high note.

A great comeback for a band that had really left little to the music world, although with gems of great quality like the self-titled album and, indeed, "Soup", in addition to a posthumous album of unreleased tracks ("Nico") as the last testament, before a silence lasting 13 years..

Let's hope that the direction taken remains of good quality as demonstrated in this work, which, in my opinion, succeeds in the difficult task of not making us regret the past, something that, moreover, was not achieved by a   much more important and awaited reunion that, as I can well see, has disappointed many expectations.