Doyle Bramhall II – Shades

Doyle Bramhall II may not be a name you’re familiar with but he’s a guitarist who is well known to some of the worlds top stars as many of them have worked with them. He’s toured with the lines of Tedeschi Trucks Band, Roger Waters and Sheryl Crow and has played on albums by Sheryl Crow, Elton John, Eric Clapton, BB King, Ritchie Kotzen, Miles Davis, Gregg Allman and many more. When you see guitarists like Eric Clapton hiring him to play guitar on their albums then you get an idea just how good he must be.

As well as his work on other people’s albums, Doyle Bramhall II has released four solo albums, and is now releasing his fifth – Shades. On this album he’s got a few guests – Tedeschi trucks band, Norah Jones and Eric Clapton.

The highlight of the album is in my view, the excellent “Searching for love” featuring guest vocals from Norah Jones. It’s a beautiful ballad, but rather than just sticking to the main part of the song there’s a long (in my view overly long) outro, with the main body of the song and vocals ending after around four and a half minutes, and then it’s almost two minutes of instrumental which I think just detracts from the song.

I’ve got to be honest – while the playing is top quality and the songs are well writtem, I just found this album overall to be a bit dull and forgettable. There’s also little feeling of the songs belonging together. I’m sure it’s a very good album but it’s got little to offer to rock and metal fans.

Track listing:

1. Love and pain
2. Hammer ring
3. Everything you need
4. London to Tokyo
5. Searching for love
6. Live forever
7. Break apart to mend
8. She’ll come around
9. The night
10. Parvanah
11. Consciousness
12. Going going gone