Inside The Hole: Impressions

If all that was needed to make a captivating Blues Rock record was enthusiasm and a passing knowledge of where the genre came from, then Palermo's Inside The Hole would be huge. For this album has both. What it doesn't have however is two original ideas to rub together, a killer track in sight that makes you buy into this band's ethos, or in truth, a singer who can actually sing in a way which gives you a cat in hell's chance of understanding what he's on about.

Yes everything rolls along on riffs that go dun-dun-dunnn-du-du-duuuurrrrrr-dun, and the solos are, to be fair, believably stinging. And yet with guitarist Roy Zappia failing to make his vocals sound like much more than "WennIwwerrrrtoallonggtiiiooooooohhhhhhhbaaaaby!", where's the point? Seriously, the vocal efforts are far closer to laughable than listenable. Now that may sound harsh, yet there's little denying that if ever proof were needed that one seriously lacking aspect can take a set of half-decent songs and make them basically worthless, then this is it. However there's more than one thing lacking here, the production being so shoddy (that'll be Zappia again), that the results sit closer to home demo than completed album.

That Zappia can obviously play and that his band mates Emanuelo Cutrona (bass) and Alessio Runfola (drums) are far from slouches either, is the real disappointment, for it would be far easier to be this horrible about an album that has absolutely no redeeming features. But that isn't the case. "Impressions" is a hard hitting riff-fest, and "Woman Blues (A Little Tribute To Buddy Guy)" is a decent straight up Blues workout (with more intelligible vocals). However with the rest of what's on show falling into at best workmanlike and honest, then what was needed was a seriously hard hitting execution to raise them above average and that couldn't be further from the truth. As albums go Impressions makes all the wrong ones.

Track Listing
1. We'll Be Free
2. I'll Fight For Me
3. I Pay For You
4. Woman Blues
5. Baby Song
6. Mary, The Dream
7. Love Me Baby
8. Impressions
9. Beer! Sex! …Amd Fuckin' Roll!
10. Begins The Blues

Added: March 28th 2015
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Inside The Hole on ReverbNation
Hits: 1603
Language: english

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