Fortune - Influences

Hear The Track Here

Slowly but surely I'm working my way through Boston, MA based classic rock outfit Fortune's entire catalog and considering that I've reviewed about six of their tracks and given them at least four Must Have's there has to be something shaking. Yeah but Gilmore, you are the rock animal right? Wellllll (waggles hand) yes and no. Yes I am still fascinated with the music of my youth (rock, classic for the headbanging of) but only to a certain degree. See, there were aspects of both the British and American rock eras that are probably best forgotten but like bad pennies, they keep reappearing...

Yep, that prog rock monster again...

There is also a certain strain of American rock that really grinds my gears, its all way to perky sounding for me. Like the blues roots it sprang from, rock is gritty, earthy. Still best not go there, it's an oft repeated tale. One of the main standouts of any Fortune track is the absolute unswerving attention to production detail, for my money it singles them out as much as the fact that they are a live gigging band. Can't help but get a bit tighter as musicians when you play live a lot. Fortune put this experience to excellent use making a prog rock tinged series of great songs.

Influences, for example, carries all the hallmarks of classic rock, veering into prog rock, funk rock and all points south. If you really like/liked the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult (who this reminds me most of) or even Boston themselves then Fortune is ready to smile on you. I think one of the reasons Fortune manage to get over my enormous prejudice against prog rock is to do it with such style and pizazz, and to make it an integral part of a complete song - rather than the ego trip it often tends to be in that genre. Much more to the point is that - once again - Fortune prove that they know precisely how to put a world class song together.

MUST HAVE (getting to be a habit) classic rock.