“Whatever happened to love and devotion?” HeavyDrunk asks an excellent question and does so via a pretty much perfect ballad. Not just a good song but that rarest of things – a love song that is mature and melodic, powerful and poignant, rather than the usual schmaltzy, throwaway, stomach-turning saccharine stuff that usually comes with such a tag. There is none of the usual rhyming of Moon with June here, none of the typical cliche and cloying sentiment. This is a real deal. But it is a love song for the world rather than just a tune for the latest squeeze. It’s a song that just shows you how surprisingly low the standards are in the love song department.
But then, HeavyDrunk is a band that will always surprise you. Whilst they are experts at the southern blues groove, that raggedy roots sound that only those from certain latitudes seem to be able to pull off convincingly, “Love & Devotion” proves that they are also able to deliver the sweetest and most authentic soul salvos.
Here, over lovely, languid, and wilfully lazy grooves, they build their “balm of cool reflection in these heated times” by blending whispering and whistling Hammond organs and gentle beats, soul-sister harmonies, and delicate guitar licks, talkative basslines, and the breeziest of brass drivebys. And then there’s Rob Robinson’s vocals, a blend of seductive sweetness and raw, rasping sentiment to put the sonic icing on this marvelous musical cake.
This is a great song by an awesome band, and it is a timely recall of the compassion, civility, empathy, and understanding that used to be the norm in our society.
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