Swanee River – Smoking Jacket CD review

Recently the UK has been somewhat replenished of good old fashioned hard rock bands that actually make an impact and sound decent. Irish rockers, Swanee River on the other hand are a band who through balls out, foot stomping guitar riffs, soaring vocal lines and catchy AC/DC like choruses, prove why they are one of Ireland’s hottest new talents. Presenting Smoking jacket – the astounding debut by Swanne River; an album chocked full of melody, rhythm and groove, an album that is goddamn catchy, an album that could be seen as one of the finest rock n’ roll albums by a British artist of the past ten years. If you like all things classic, then Smoking Jacket will be the perfect trip down nostalgic lane.

There isn’t a dull moment on Smoking Jacket and with it being made up of ten tracks of pure classic rock wonder you will most certainly have the time of your life listening to it. Swanee River is the kind of band who concentrates on the music. You can tell they are doing this for the love of the music not the commercial and economical aspect – combining the fun factor and lots of energy in tracks like ‘Gypsy Promise’, ‘Blue Moon Rising’ and ‘Flower Power’, to ensure that the listener is enjoying themselves while listening to these monster tunes.

Swanee River has a wide and diverse range of influences that can be heard all across this album and whether it is the Jimi Hendrix styled bwomp that is ‘The Dose’, to the AC/DC mixed with Thin Lizzy sounding title track ‘Smokin Track’ and intro ‘Young Blood’, Swanne River but 110% into making their music sound as huge and stylistic as possible. There’s none of this modern day jargon thrown into the mix, no, Swanee River want to make sure their music is as pure and traditional as possible ensuring that they can bring back the sweet sound of the 70’s through Smoking Jacket.

To say this is only Swanee River’s first album shows just how talented these guys really are. Not only are they extremely talented musicians, with each member showing off their musical stature in each song, they are also insane song writers. If tracks such as ‘Bouncy Castles’, ‘Don’t Follow Me’ and ‘Long One Tonight’ are the outcome of what a band new to the scene can write for their first album, then album number two is going to be the mother of all rock n’ roll albums.

Bands like AC/DC, UFO and Thunder should hang their heads in shame, for these Irish youngsters have successfully composed an astounding debut that could put most of the big shots work to shame. 2012 is the year of Swanne River, and with the release of this great album, is the year where rock n’ roll comes back with vengeance!  [8/10]