Thunder
Robert Johnson's Tombstone

A clownish pose of drummer Harry James in tails is used again to introduce the eighth and penultimate studio album of his band. It had already happened in the debut work, then the ideas for the cover became more ordinary, but on this occasion, they want to honor, jesterly but with the utmost respect, a giant of American music who, with his proto-blues production of the thirties, contributed like no other to provide the guitar, vocal, and lyrical foundations of future rock blues, the musical genre to which Thunder is dedicated.

The exact location of the grave of this virtuosic and innovative black man from Mississippi is actually unknown, nor is it clear how much truth there may be to the alleged diabolical inspiration (hence the horns on the excellent James's head...) underlying the twenty-nine pearls of songs he passed on to us before he unwillingly moved on to a better life at just twenty-seven.

...Among other things, his unfortunate killing, apparently due to jealousy, opened the enrollments to a kind of cursed club of talented and ill-fated twenty-seven-year-olds, which eventually included the likes of Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Alan Wilson from Canned Heat, Janis Joplin, Pigpen, the keyboardist of the Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Gary Thain the bassist of Uriah Heep, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, and more recently Amy Winehouse.

Thunder is a band that sounds seventies, like Led Zeppelin/Rolling Stones/Bad Company/Lynyrd Skynyrd…: they “arrived late” by twenty years, having debuted in the late eighties and then held on through ups and downs until a few years ago. Being out of sync with the times is their only, very unique flaw, along with, if you will, a lack of particular personality at the level of soloists (vocals a’la Paul Rodgers, competent and gritty guitar solos but quite anonymous).

For the rest, the band is cohesive and tough and delivers hard rock pure and simple (almost… a few semi-fawning attempts, some moderately cheeky choruses are occasionally attempted), charging like a rhino, energized by the good Harry James who, beyond his jesterly antics, is a detonating instrumentalist, with a backbeat on the snare drum worthy of Keith Moon. The interaction between the two guitarists is also great: one (the left-handed Luke Morley) is the leader, composes everything, plays most of the solos, ranges on the acoustic, and lends a hand with the backing vocals, while the other (Ben Matthews) often switches to the organ and piano, expanding the possibilities of arrangement and structuring of the tracks.

It’s useless to choose particular songs to highlight... a characteristic of Thunder is to release works with a high average yield (or golden mediocrity, for those not enthusiastic), compact and consistent. I adore them, and I find it so logical that those who love Let It Bleed, Physical Graffiti, Fire and Water, Deep Purple in Rock, and basically classic British rock well soaked in blues, cannot help but extend their esteem to this sincere, straightforward, energetic quintet.