Blog Post

The Commoners - 'Restless'

Reviewed by Iain McArthur • Jul 12, 2024
The Commoners mix soulful vocals, slippery-but-nice slide guitar licks, sweet bass lines, swelling organ and sexy female backing vocals to build a wall of mighty-fine Americana sounds with a shot of the blues and a country twist.

They might be from Toronto, Canada but their music is full of southern harmonies, musical companionship and all manner of other rootsy goodness that deserves to be celebrated everywhere from Vancouver to Vladivostok and all points in-between. Lucky us in the UK – we get to be the first ones to hear the new album live on stage this July, including a stop in Edinburgh courtesy of The Edinburgh Blues Club. 

The opening track ‘Devil Teasin’ Me’ could be straight off a ‘Best of The Black Crowes’ album. It’s a great song from start to finish, but the absolute best bit of it comes with a wee bit of delayed gratification at around 3:11. Just for a couple of seconds it’s just Chris Medhurst’s voice in splendid isolation before the band rejoins and the song spurts back into life in all its glory. Glorious stuff.

“Do you need a little sugar in your tea?” Whether you do or not, and this song is definitely not about hot beverages, you’ll love the sexy, hard-driving and riff-tastic ‘Shake You Off’ which is guaranteed to get your rocks off. The band also bring the sexy back on the slow and sultry ‘Body and Soul’, which features some lonesome and longing slide guitar with lasciviously pleading vocals, but it’s the organ and bass tag-team lurking in the shadows that truly sets the thermostat to steamy.


The signature piece in this collection might be the title track ‘Restless’, which is one of those classic southern ballads that legendary bands like Skynyrd have done so well over the years. It starts slowly and acoustically, of course, but builds up to some sublime Allmansy slide guitar play, tinkling piano and Medhurst singing his heart out like a free bird.


The rest of the album includes grand rootsy-rockers like ‘The Way I Am’, the blistering ‘Gone Without Warning’ and ‘Who Are You’, but the band also know when to change the mood. The mid-paced ‘Too Soon to Know You’ works well and they slip easily into country mode on ‘See You Again’ and the whole-hearted closing ballad ‘All That We Have’.


The Commoners already have some fine records to their name and have established a live reputation from touring with Samantha Fish and Troy Redfern last year, but this album is the sound of a band really hitting their stride and entering their prime. Once you’ve heard this collection, you’ll be wanting a concert ticket but you might need to move quickly.


Rockfiend will be at the Edinburgh show with a live review to follow.

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