CD Album Review: Stephen Dale Petit – The Crave
Stephen Dale Petit (aka SDP) is a blues guitarist originally from Califonia who relocated to London in the late eighties and set himself up as the pioneer of the New Blues Movement (no, me neither). According to his press releases and the blurb in the inlay of his new album, SPD is well a respected blues player - a quote from Classic Rock even goes as far as to say ‘Petit has the fire of Freddie King, the instinct of Jimmy Page and the soul of Clapton’ – a brave statement indeed! The burning question is does ‘The Crave’ match up to expectations?
In short the answer is no. Way too long at 17 tracks, The Crave features a mixture of self penned tunes and covers. The most notable song on, and wisely the first single to be taken from the album, is ‘California’ a cover of the Tupac/Dre classic (shouldn’t that be California Love?) which is actually quite different and very good but the rest of the tracks are fairly standard blues songs that a million pub bands up and down the country could play just as well. And therein lies the problem, despite all the accolades there really is nothing here to make SDP stand out from a pub band, even Robert Johnson’s ‘Cross Road Blues’, a stone cold classic, sounds amateurish. The real nail in the coffin though is his voice which sways from over-enunciating every word to a very poor effort at imitating Dr Feelgood’s Lee Brilleaux.
2/5
Out 26th July on Universal.
www.myspace.com/stephendalepetit
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Bought the album yesterday…. this review is bollocks.
“The Crave” is easily a contender for album of the year. Lame comments aplenty (“Way to long at 70 minutes” ? It’s a double album on vinyl, a configuration which Nicht Tot must surely be aware of?) your review is so wide of the mark that I wonder if you are a speed casualty who’s brain has been corroded by too much sulfate? Petit’s cover of Cross Road Blues is exquisite, and good on him for having the balls to re-think the song – every one of the hundreds of recorded cover versions of this song have either aped Johnson’s or Cream’s, and we sure as fuck don’t need another hackneyed tired trudge down those roads. Amatuerish? More like cloth ears mate. As for the pub band comment….you must be having a laugh. The ragged edginess of this music, the dirt on the floor saturday night rave up energy is so authentic and real – there isn’t a brewers droop combo in the land that could dream of pulling off something this spirited and potent.
Check out Soul Survivor, 3 Gunslingers, The Gun Song.
Readers, this album is “London Calling” 2010.
(Mick Jones adores the John Mayall Beano album, and thinks “The Crave” is fantastic. I know. He’s the one who told me to get it.)
The review, unattributed, was written by…..I know, Jimmy Pursey’s emotionally stunted older brother or sumat? A right Herbert, that’s for sure.
I agree entirely with the above comment.
It make a huge change from hearing the overproduced rubbish in the charts today. Too long at 17 tracks makes no sense either as surely you are getting more for your money? Besides I can think of plenty of great albums that are 17 tracks long or longer!?
The “Pub Band” comment is completely unjustified, Ive seen SDP and his band on several occasions, twice at the 100 Club in Oxford street (One of which featured the former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, which was brilliant) and once earlier this year at the High Voltage festival in Victoria Park which was one of the best performances I saw while I was there. I cant say I that Ive ever seen any pub bands play venue’s and events of this calibre!?
Overall I feel this review is ridiculously harsh on an album that will have most buyers feeling very happy indeed. I certainly am.