FANTASY RECORDS 29th July 2022
We’ve featured the Tedeschi Trucks Band a lot recently, thanks to the news that they will be touring the UK in Autumn and that they are releasing four albums over four months. Those albums form a set, telling a story from Persian folklore, the story of two lovers. The other reason is the amazing bluesy sound of the band. Being twelve-strong, they have a full and rich soulful sound, fronted by a rotating cast of strong singers, including Susan Tedeschi, and two awesome guitar players – Ms Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. Instead of banging on about them, you might want to sample the full-length videos that accompany each album here:
https://www.tedeschitrucksband.com/i-am-the-moon
It is a story of passion, longing, despair, hope, inspired by the 12th century poem about lovers Layla and Majnun. The videos work more as music videos than the visuals for a musical. This time round I fail to see the story connection in the songs and hear instead six powerful songs, from the punchy ‘Gravity’ to the epic ‘Take Me As I Am’. Punchy horns illustrate and fill, as do harmony backing vocals. Songs are a true band effort, written by not just the titular leaders. Having matched the previous releases to the length of the ‘perfect album’ (Axis: Bold As Love), I’m surprised this is only thirty minutes but it does show how half an hour of fireworks beats the 80-minute trudge a lesser band might resort to to fill a CD. There isn’t room for the expansive guitar workouts of previous releases but, as a result, the whole is is more song-based and is still one of the best studio releases from the band (though do check out the live ones for atmosphere).
It won’t be long till instalment four and I’m interested to see how this fits to the schemata of story-retelling. Don’t forget to sample these on the video link above.