Ryan Hamilton and the Harlequin Ghosts - Nowhere To Go But Everywhere
It is just over a year since transatlantic rock ‘n’ rollers Ryan Hamilton & the Harlequin Ghosts released the Independent Music Award winning debut album This Is The Sound and just four months since the band topped the iTunes country chart with the Incommunicado EP. Now they return with sophomore release Nowhere To Go But Everywhere.
Recorded in Texas and the UK, this is country-inflected, power-pop tinged, folkie take on goodtime rockin’. The soaring pop of Only A Dream hints at Big Star. Jesus & John Lennon is a rocker that recalls Drive-By Truckers. Out of My League is in a similar vein, melding honky-tonk piano, 70s rock geetar and flourishes of Hammond organ. Things get melancholy on Let’s Go Slow and Don’t Fall Apart, whilst Southern Accents is piano ballad with weeping lapsteel. Highlights are the Tom Petty-esque paean to Geordie girls that is Newcastle Charm and the raucous Southern testifying Can I Get An Amen which is equal parts Sharon Jones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Rocks-era Primal Scream.
Equally good on headphones, blasting out of the car stereo or as the soundtrack to a boozy backyard BBQ, this is a gloriously timeless classic of its type.
9.5/10
