Rick Cantor Band - The Truth Is I'm Lying/Memphis

Hear The Track Here

Another double header but that's because I was expecting to be reviewing the EP but gremlins spoke louder. Damn those infernal gremlins! Anyway, I finally managed to grab these two (thanks Mike) and rushed them though over the last couple of days since I got them. See, not only am I way behind on the reviews, I'm even behind on the listening. Sheesh, this is organised?? Wait, don't answer that, it might be incriminating. I spent many years living and working in American and got to know the 'cover band' phenomenon very well. This is literally that, a band that makes a living playing other people's songs. Nothing wrong with that, especially if you want to be a musician that isn't starving in some garret somewhere.

As they do. Or is that artists?

The Rick Cantor Band do have their own material though, as these two tracks from their current Upstairs At Graceland EP show. RCB are a five piece band comprising Mike Bange, Rick Cantor, Travis Hudelson, Brett Levine and Jim Sampson, based in the NYC/New Jersey area (Ed: hey, what exit??), and have many years experience between them. It stands to reason then that I would be expecting a production and performance to match that experience and I wasn't disappointed. The Truth Is I'm Lying Again shows the bands roots lie back in the sounds of classic rock, although their list of musical influences give a big clue. Now you all know I am rock animal through and through, the classic kind especially, and here's a track that manages to both sound truly modern (think Coldplay) and yet classic at the same time. Neat trick.

Memphis turns up the rock screws somewhat but, to my ears anyway, doesn't have either the same sound or style as The Truth Is I'm Lying Again, although it absolutely can't be faulted musically, the vocals too deserve highlighting. Now maybe it's my ears, but there seems to be a slight deadening of the sound on this track that lifts completely during the acoustic middle section, but returns for the final rockout. I don't know though, maybe it's just a question of taste but I did try it on several different systems to see whether my ears were telling me porkies (Ed: pork pies=lies, Cockney rhyming slang)but it doesn't seem so. Maybe it's the sea of whiskey and beer the track floats on, and that's yet another aspect of being a cover band but it's best not to go there....

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