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REVIEWS

When Rivers Meet—Saving Grace—One Road Records

This is the second album from When Rivers Meet - a husband and
wife duo formed by Grace and Aaron Bond - Grace sings and plays
mandolin and violin, Aaron plays guitars and producer Adam

Bowers adds keyboards, bass, drums and trumpet. The album was
recorded at the Boathouse Studio in Suffolk and features a dozen
original songs, they describe their music as blues rock -
influenced by classic blues singers like Muddy Waters and Bonnie
Raitt but also by acts such as Metallica and Guns 'n' Roses. It's

this combination that gives tracks like opener 'I Can’t Fight This
Feeling' and the following 'Never Coming Home' that bit of extra
dynamics and drama with Grace's powerful vocals being backed up by equally powerful riffing
guitar. 'Don’t Tell Me Goodbye' is a lovely melodic ballad which also features Aaron singing along
with Grace but 'Do You Remember My Name' steps up the volume again and 'Eye Of A Hurricane'
also features Aaron's vocals along with some nice guitar.

'Testify' is a real banger that reminded me of Skunk Anansie with Grace belting out the vocals over
a pounding track featuring guitar and organ, while 'Shoot The Breeze' has slide guitar and 'Lost and
Found' is another blaster with machine gun drums and soaring vocals from Grace. 'Talking In My
Sleep' is another acoustic ballad with beautiful harmonies but in case you think they've gone soft
'Make A Grown Man Cry' blasts in to round off the album. I've got to say that this is blues rock
heavy on the ROCK and not really my thing but I can appreciate that it is done well and I think that
many will love this mashup of heavy rock and progressive blues which brought to mind early Black

Sabbath as well as Bad Company. I was also impressed by how they can move seamlessly from the
heavy rock tracks to the acoustic ballads - which I've got to say that I personally preferred.

Graham Harrison

Hans Theessink and Big Daddy Wilson—Pay Day—Blue Groove
ASIN:B09FSCKLH7

Hans Theessink – ‘the Dutch Ry Cooder’ – has teamed up with US
exile Big Daddy Wilson for this 16-track album recorded live in
Austria with songs that Hans describes as “some old, some new,
some borrowed”. We begin with a nice relaxed reading of Blind
Willie Johnson’s ‘Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right’
while ‘Walking’ is an original song with both men sharing the

vocals and also Hans’ slide guitar, ‘Pay Day' is the old Mississippi
John Hurt song – one of my favourites but I didn’t think that they
really did too much with it – I much preferred the recent version by AJ Fullerton. ‘Virus Blues’ is a
song about Covid-19 and ‘Hard Time Killing Floor’ is the eerie old Skip James song with Hans’
authentic slide guitar and both men on vocals.