The Blood Rush Hour - Sanity Fare

 

Again we return to the early days of IDHAS to revisit The Blood Rush Hour. Who Folds First was a delightful surprise. A real flavour of 70s classic Pop Rock provided melodic joy. You can read that review here at your leisure.

Sanity Fare still has those Pop Rock delights, particularly on No One's There (At All), but there are plenty of steps in other directions. Robert DiStefano felt spent musically after the efforts of the previous albums that it has took six years for the follow up.

Teaming up with Willie Dowling of our beloved The Dowling Poole, there is at times a move into wonderful Prog Pop on the likes of Within This Tragedy and Here We Go Again, reminiscent say of Yes's Drama period.

There is also more than a hint at times of The Alan Parsons Project. Dowling's unfluence can be heard clearly, especially on Watching You Make Love which is a popped up shuffle, a little salsa in vibe with its lounge piano and some great Brass.

See You Again picks up the pace and (No More) Happy Ending is incredibly jaunty alternating vocals between 60s West Coast Pop and 80s urgency. There is a hell of a lot packed into its three minutes and reminds me a lot of Andrew Gold.

The closing Waves Set In Motion is probably the best song The Dowling Poole didn't write. Instrumentally, it has a slight Christmas feel, but why would you turn a joyous song into forced jollity when you can provide the real thing. The arrangements and performance reveal the work that has gone into Sanity Fare and it has really paid off.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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The Blood Rush Hour - Who Folds First

The Blood Rush Hour's third album develops Robert DeStefano's brand of Pop Rock further. And Then.... The Unthinkable Happened, the previous album. was great. This trumps it. There will be obvious Jellyfish and Beatles comparisons, but there should be greater thought in these comparisons.

The stock feel is very much Mid 70's Pop Rock and if there is a Beatles tinge, it may be more Rutles, because DeStefano's way with a song is far more Neil Innes than Paul McCartney. His vocals are a bit Colin Moulding, particularly post XTC and there is also a modern Prog overtone. It's a bit like 10CC playing a bit of Prog though.

This is a really clever melodic album and it's nice to see Christian Phillips involved on the album, someone who seems to sprinkle a bit of gold dust on everything he touches. That Beach Boys like Wall Of Sound is very similar to The Explorers Club, particularly on The Space That We Have.

The album could have fallen in to the trap of a lot of Pop Rock albums in descending into an easy listening vibe. but Who Folds First is so damn tuneful and clever that it avoids that. God's Wall could be Buggles Era Yes,

There's also real wit, New Country is just that, but more like Costello does Country. Find Another Russian Dancer could be Alan Parsons Project or John John Miles. In Between Time could have been on ELO's Secret Messages. What Does It Take reminds me a lot of The Legal Matters.

Even allowing for the clever Doo Wop Harmonies on No More Excuses which lead into a real Pilot like riff, my favourite song is I'm The One, a wonderfully jaunty affair with it's piano solo. I Do Hear A Single (ha ha) there. There's some great great Pop and Rock coming out of South Wales lately. It must be something in the water.



There aren't a lot of songs from the album around the net to listen to. The You Tube links are also removed. You can take my word for what a great album it is and if I get any links, I will update the post. In the meantime you can listen to 30 Second Samples on Amazon here. You can also buy the album here.