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On "This Hour" |
"I had never heard of Clint Bradley before I got this
release. According to the information supplied he comes from
the New Forest area and is a singer / songwriter who has worked
extensively here and in America ... but is he country? Yes
and no, but one thing is certain Clint is not only a quality
singer / songwriter but also an equally good musician and
producer.
From the opening "Guilty Heart" ballad as soon
as I heard the instrumental work and Clint's voice I knew
this was going to be My Album Of The Month ... incidentally
The Blockheads, of Ian Dury fame, are the musicians used.
Barbed Wire Round The Meadow moves up-tempo and has very
british lyrics set to a kind of "The Devil Went To Georgia"
feel. It's back to ballads again for "Love Is To Blame"
and "When Will I Learn" and these allow Bradley
to use the full range of his singing voice and prove he is
a first class vocalist ... I think both songs are very commercial
and should be aimed at MOR radio shows.
I understand that these 11 songs are just a fraction of a
very large repertoire ... this is definitely one artist I
want to see live and hear more of."
Ian McQueen
Country Music News & Routes - July 1997 |
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"The production enhances the romantic,
longing mood of Alright Mary, as Bradley turns in
a fine vocal performance. Forever Forever is a slowly
building dramatic song that builds to a spine tingling climax,
while Purple Land begins with the hush of a delicate
guitar and slowly lifts to a country-rock roar.
His lyrics are sensitive enough to please and directed in
such a way that they aren't depressing, touching without hurting,
which is instrumental for the creation of the moods in his
writing. Bradley's voice is inviting and accessible, melding
with the sophisticated pop melodies and never resorting to
dramatics that could overpower the well-stated messages in
the lyrics.
Adrian Cooke |
"The debut-album of Clint[on] Bradley introduces
the Englishman as a blend of Roy Orbison and Chris Isaak with
plenty of convincing songs.
It is one of the basics in rock-music, that a formerly successful
style or sound will come back periodically. This happens presently
with Britpop, which is nothing else but a modernized style
of beat-music, and also with trance, which recycles the electronic
music of the '70s. But only very seldom a singer appears like
a rebirth of another one - moreover if he writes songs in
the same quality of the original. That is exactly what Clint
Bradley proves with his debut This Hour on which
he sounds like a young Roy Orbison. The songs, the voice and
the entire musical surrounding fit exactly into that scheme,
and more than that he wrote songs R.O. would have been proud
of.
Considering that this whole thing happens in the 90s, it
might seem to be anachronistical. On the other hand, the Big
O himself celebrated a great comeback shortly before the passed
away and Chris Isaak boosted the charts in the 90s with a
slightly modified sound. So it's the quality which counts,
and in this respect Clint Bradley is fantastic. Not only because
he wrote the songs all by himself, but because he created
such a big variety to avoid the image of a simple copy. His
love hurts-sound actually attracts the listener,
but there are also up-tempo tracks he arranged perfectly.
In addition to that he and his co-producer Chris Bostock preferred
arrangements with a guitar-based band referring to the rock'n'roll-era.
This not only features the voice of Bradley, it simply demands
for it."
Rough Translation of
Clint Bradley "Record Of The Month" in Oldie-Markt,
Germany's monthly magazine for record collectors: |
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"The most convincing epigone since long:
Clint Bradley names as musical influences Marty Robbins, Jim
Reeves, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Roy Orbison, but also
Paul Weller, Billy Bragg, Christy Moore and Shane McGowen.
Sounds dangerous yet works. Those eleven songs on his debut
album This Hour (ARIS) do not deny their prototypes;
Bradley, introducing himself as an English Country-boy, sings
like a rebirth of Roy Orbison; Marty Robbins meets Billy Bragg;
Country and Folk merge into an ideal combination. Also surprising:
the Blockheads as side-band, once working with Ian Dury.
From "Rolling Stone"
(Germany)
July, 1997 p.87 |
On "Different
Breed" by Beltane Fire |
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating,
so they say, and after reading a menu full of journalistic
jibberish from yours truly on behalf of this band, I'd say
that even those on a strict diet of HM should be feeling a
mite peckish by now, right?
I hope so, because it's not every day that a band like Beltane
Fire raps on the heavy, reluctant door of British
rock music offering a distinctive and attractive alternative
to the mainstream flow of things. It's not all that often
that we encounter a band with new ideas and new expressions,
one capable of thinking beyond crotch and liver, and equipped
to deliver the superficial essence of good time rock with
a depth of character and emotion.
So let's cut the crap and consider 'Different Breed'
- an intriguing debut album which draws together the many
different strands of Beltane's influences and dabblings into
a neat knot of rock music. One quick panoramic glimpse will
give you the double-bass strut of 'Captain Blood',
the Celtic-flavoured anthem of 'Fortune Favours The
Brave', with it's military-style drums and reaching
twin-guitar lead, the reggae leanings of 'Excalibur'
and the stern rocking stomp of 'King Arthur's Cave'.
But in order to appreciate the album and it's subdivisions
fully, a much more thoughtful surveillance is needed....
There's no doubt about it, Beltane's style is
weird and, at first, difficult to get into. People may disagree
over where the style is rooted, but with the modern guitar
sounds and effects which Carlo Edwards achieves contrasting
with the thumping old-fashioned double-bass of Mitch Caws,
and Clint Bradley's operatic voice snaking somewhere in between,
it should be concluded that this band have created their own
firm identity, and any attempt to shove them into a pigeon-hole
would be iniquitous. As you might expect, they are an acquired
taste, but then the challenge of 'getting into them' is, I
can assure you, very rewarding.
And yet, having documented the curious nature
of Beltane Fire, it must be said that the band present enough
memorable choruses here to attain a certain amount of immediacy;
fill your lungs with 'Fortune Favours The Brave',
'Night Fishing' and 'Excalibur',
for example, and you'll be planting the seeds of a long and,
I'm sure, fruitful association with the band."
Mark Putterford
Kerrang 1985 |
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On "Wild Night"
by The Blue Cats |
Single Of The Week in Sounds
1981
"We're quiff-handed, pal! Not so much a bandwagon, more
a breath of fresh air. Strip away all thoughts of hipness
and fashion and just earhole with mind open and tootsies tapping
- it's just about the only record in this week's depressing
pile of plastic that EXCITES! It's alive, a laugh, and as
dynamic a slice of rip-roaring body-swirling rock 'n' rollin'
dynamite as you'll find this side of post-army Elvis.
Croydon's Mitch Caws stands with one foot in a bloody post-ruck
gutter dealing out an addictive elastic double bass intro
to a steaming hot groover that's catchier than Asian Flu in
Southall High Street, as vox-box Clint Bradley purrs words
straight out of a West Side Story Roack Dream - 'All the kids
are coming out / 'Cause they got plenty to shout about / Maybe
they'll drink, maybe they'll fight / 'Cause they all know
it's gonna be a wild night .... Shouts of anger, cries of
rage / cries of rage / The cops are here, "what's your
age" / The band stops playing / They shout for more /
Banging on the bloodstained floor / it's a wild wind blowin
/ And the wild kids knowin' / It's gonna be a wild night ....'
Perfectly, sorry, purrfectly executed, vocals so cool you
could store a leg of lamb in that gob for two years without
it going off, a neatly economical guitar break picked out
with a flick blade ... It's fine evocative pop, rockist till
it dies.
Like good ska, good rockabilly is truly timeless and always
exhilarating. Unavoidably danceable, compulsively sigalongable,
totally teenage and tirelessly essential for the long hot
summer of 81. Me? I'm just minding my own business and combing
my hair."
Sounds (April 1981)
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