Joel Gibbons – 'Cheap Liquor'

There’s a wide range of styles displayed amongst the seven tracks. Opening track “Free Me” has a distinctly southern rock feel with layered guitars fitting comfortably into the groovy southern rock of Blackberry Smoke, Whisky Myers, and similar bands. The drumming here has a tribal feel that synchronises well with the guitars.

Contrasting to “Free Me” track six, “Forever” shimmers with its simpler charm producing a power ballad that counterpoints the other heavier tracks that are around it. There’re acoustic guitars at the forefront here, electric ones embellishing the choruses. The bass rumbles through the whole track and it’s all glued together by some syncopated drumming.

Between these two tracks Joel gives us some bluesier moments in the title track choruses, shifting into heavier mode for the verses but keeping things down and dirty.

For the rockers there’s “Big Love”. Full of youthful energy and enthusiasm it delivers in a style that reminded me of Def Leppard circa “On Through the Night” or “Pyromania”.

There’s further evidence of Joel’s desire to rock hard on “Break Even” and “A Long Time”. The former has the staccato style of sharply defined notes that bands like Judas Priest and Skid Row favour, which should be no surprise to anyone who’s followed Joel’s YouTube output or read any of his online profiles. “Break Even” also has a stop-start tempo and an atmospheric quieter passage before the sound fills back in for the end of the track. Both tracks have some nice guitar work in the solos.

According to Spotify “Through the Streets” features Joel Hoekstra. This track closes the album with an up-tempo rocker that has a rowdy chorus and the best solo of the set (Hoekstra?)

In places the production seems a bit muddy (I was listening through Spotify so that may play into this) and some of the elements would drop in and out of balance. However, without knowing what equipment was involved and how much multi-tracking was going on its not something I want to draw too much attention too.

Joel wears his inspirations proudly. There’s nothing wrong with that, plenty of artists first recordings clearly showed who they were indebted too, Rush, Queen and many others started off sounding like Led Zepp, The Sheep dogs still have moments when they turn into the Allman Brothers, The Struts have never hidden their love of Queen and all things glammy. What matters is that all these bands grew from their debuts and established their own sound. In many cases becoming bands that would inspire those who followed them.

There’s a tenacity on display here that makes you think of the underdog fighter looking for his shot at the crown of his heroes. It will be interesting to see if Joel’s next steps see him developing into his own musical identity.