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REVIEWS

Mockingbird Hill—Songs From The Small Room—Mad Ears
Productions

Mockingbird Hill are a studio based project led by multi-award
winning British songwriter, Andy Littlewood and his featured
guest musicians.

The album opens with ‘Independence’ a good rootsy tune driven
along with some powerful banjo from Andrius Linsdell. ‘South-
ern Highway’ is a guitar based instrumental whilst ‘You Don’t
Know’ extols the virtues of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s

gone. Andy Littlewood’s vocals really start to shine on ‘Wrong Side Of The Tracks’.

There is a more bluesy feel to ‘Words Unsaid’ with its Lo Fi vocal and resonator guitar. The
instrumental ‘Walking To The Crossroads’ as the name suggests is very bluesy and has a lovely
handclap rhythm, enjoyed this one. ‘Driving To The Bright Lights’ has an Americana feel and
then it’s back to the blues with the resonator vibe of ‘Devil in Her Heart’. The closing number of
the album ‘Long Way Back’ is my favourite, such an intimate feel to this lovely song.

Andy Littlewood has a great vocal sound and cool vocal delivery. Having assembled some great
fellow musicians he has managed to produce a great album which mixes Blues with Americana.
There is a real seventies vibe about this album which at times reminded me of Jonathan Kelly
and at other times Crosby Stills and Nash, a worthy album to check out.

Ged Wilson

The 2:19—We Will Get Through This—Independent Release

The 2:19 are a band based around Belfast Northern Ireland and
have recently been a nominee for Band of the Year at the 2023 UK
Blues Awards. “We Will Get Through This” is their second album.

There is some powerful riff based blues rock to be had with the

opener, ‘No Smoke No Fire’. ‘Turn Out The Lights’ has a great rock
and roll vibe with some tasty harmonica work from Andrei Mari-
nescu. There is a bit of the Rolling Stones about ‘Hey Carolina’
and Monty Sneddon really drives ‘Ready To Go’ with some great
powerful drum sounds.

John McCullough lays down some tasty electric piano on the funky blues ‘The Reach’ whilst Amy
Montgomery teams up with Chris Chalmers to good effect on the piano ballad ‘Broken Harmony
Blues’. The track ‘Seven Wonders’ had me smiling with the line, “…got more excuses than a five
month pregnant nun” before the album closes with the title track ‘We Will Get Through This’.