Call Upon The Author

From the cover of The Mojo Gurus new album “Let’s get lit with…” I expected some sort of psychedelic, Jefferson Airplane inspired, marijuana fuelled 70’s excellence, sadly these expectations were far from met, instead I found myself drifting off into tedious “rock” that I couldn’t help but feel all they were doing had been done a million times before. It has that same American road side bar feel to it that Aerosmith’s first album did, yet with tracks such as “Bucket O’ Blood” showing signs of the typical surfers theme along with that Rock ‘n’ Roll Cream feel in songs such as “(Just A) Couple of Kicks” the chopping and changing between folk, rock, psychedelic and country became a bit too much.
When I first heard The Mojo Gurus new album “Let’s get lit with…” I thought it was a game of “Guess the Intro”, I say this because almost every songs introduction bares resemblance to a song of the past. For example the 10th song on the album “The Price I Pay” could easily break into “Smoke on the Water” from the first two chords whereas track number 12 “Nuthin’ But A Thang” can be imagined turning into a folk version of the Benny Hill theme tune. This isn’t necessarily a negative point just purely an observation, each song mentioned does come into its own post-intro however is initially recognisable.
Vocalist Kevin Steeles Southern twang becomes a little much after the 3rd track, so by the time you cross 7th track “Rebelene” hearing that same old repetitive chant persuades me personally to hit pause and have a cigarette. On the plus side the addition of a saxophone does add a little bit of a jazzy twist to the song, similarly to the regular use of harmonica which I always enjoy. Instrumentally The Mojo Gurus are difficult to fault, with a wide variety of instruments and obviously talented musicians the boys inclusion of mandolin, banjo and fiddle are great additions. Yet I can’t help feeling that the combination of so many different musical styles has somehow turned against them- A classic case of “less is more” perhaps.