BAND OF THE UNDERHAND - A Long Way Home (*A REVIEW*)

The best music hits you in the head and heart, before it moves you to different places and fills spaces. Rock'n'Roll is not just youthful rebellion, it's for life, Band of The Underhand are a testament to that; several of these guys are veterans with a couple of 'em have paid their dues in late 80's bands Under Two Flags and Lightning Strike. The music they make floors you with a right hook and a cardiac arrest.

Their debut album A Long Way Home is packed to the rafters with big bold anthems and ballsy ballads that could pack a stadium never mind the backroom of a Spit'n'Sawdust pub. It's an expansive and enthralling, bluesy and rootsy Rock'n'Roll record, soulful, uplifting and funky. A life affirming listen that raises you up and loses you in a soundscape of weeping and screaming guitars, rattling, tinkling pianos solid rhythms, horns and harmonicas The lyrics tell tales of loneliness and isolation, hope and frustration with a bit of social comment and politics thrown in for good measure. It's polished and pure, packed with raw emotion and a passion that isn't a fashion. Another contender for my album of the year?....most definitely!

LIGHTNING STRIKE!

It’s 1988, the times were a changing communism was collapsing, music was lifeless and pop, CD’s were taking over from vinyl, but somethings didn’t change, like the nature of a rock’n’roll band. London band LIGHTNING STRIKE came from the Bernie Rhodes school of punk rock management, courtesy of hard nosed manager Kevin Daley, who helped create the mythology, by moving the band to New York for a couple of months of low rent poverty living, cause a bit of controversy over the political content of their lyrics, did a poster campaign slagging of pop idols of the day Bros, and got ‘em posing a lot looking like a gang. Lightning Strike played the role well. These guys were proud to be described as Clash copyists “The last review we had said ‘The singer must have stood and practised in front of the mirror for hours to be Joe Strummer’ And the geezer was right. I did! So what? We like The Clash so I don’t take it as an insult.”
The band gigged round London toured the UK with Boys Wonder and Crazy Pink Revolvers on the jiffy condom sponsored safe sex tour. Caught ‘em live in Stevenage on that tour, they rocked their hearts out to an empty hall. They were signed to major label RCA and released a single Beat Street and this their self titled debut and then bang as soon as they appeared they disappeared and judging by what I couldn’t find on the net have remained forgotten about. Any way, have a blast of some Rollockin’ Rock’n’Roll, all hooks and choruses, with a hip hop undercurrent. Catchy stuff. Nothing radical or revolutionary but a good way to spend half an hour. The Lightning Strikes here!