Barfly Let’s Fall In Love Review
Cairns online entertainment magazine “Barfly” positive review of Jack Howard’s second solo album.
Author: Tony Hillier, Barfly magazine.
Date: October 2004.
Original URL: (Not Available)
Jack Howard’s third offering in four years is an unexpected treasure; an album you could definitely fall in love with. Howard was an integral part of Hunters & Collectors for many years (as trumpeter, backing vocalist and songwriter) and he’s also recorded and toured with those other much loved Oz rock bands, Midnight Oil, The Living End, Died Pretty and The Models. On the evidence of Let’s Fall In Love, his new band, The Long Lost Brothers, might also make an indelible impression on the great unwashed.
Howard and his Melbourne mates punch out some of the classiest and catchiest roots rock heard from an Aussie band in recent years. The album seamlessly mixes genres without ever becoming generic. There’s plenty of passion in the playing and a groove that grips from the driving opener, “Losin’ My Mind”, with its great opening line “I string my soul like an old guitar”.
Apart from the high quality of Howard’s songs and the strength of his voice, the artist’s trumpet, in tandem with trombone, produces an irresistible brass section that invests three or four of the songs with a Mariachi feel; others a hint of Chicago or Blood Sweat & Tears’ soul. The stinging guitar of Lost Brother Nicky Del Rey and the hammond organ washes of guest Tim Neal are other admirable features.
Recording on an array of vintage microphones and sound processors has imbued Let’s Fall In Love with a warm, live sound. Listening to the album, you just know Jack Howard & The Long Lost Brothers would be a crowd pleaser at Sydney’s Basement or Melbourne’s Espy.
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