Morten Valence - Black Angel Drifter [Vinyl]

This, the seventh studio offering from Urban Country duo Morton Valence (Anne Gilpin and Robert ‘Hacker’ Jessett), started life as their experimental side-project back in 2016. Legendary UK country label Cow Pie Ltd’s - established in 1978 by BJ Cole and Hank Wangford - sensibilities were especially tweaked and they were convinced it was time this spectacular album finally got the airing it has always deserved, remastered and repackaged for a new era. The album features ten tracks. From the explosive intro of ‘Skylines Change / Genders Blur’, coming at you like the illegitimate lovechild of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Ennio Morricone, to the down-at-heel ‘Black-Eyed Susan’, replete with sweaty priest and bullwhips, Morton Valence also flirt with the blues on ‘Sister Pain’, deliver sorrowful, divine love songs like ‘The Visit’ & ’Hymn Four’ and breathe fresh discordant life into the late 80s Bob Dylan classic, ‘The Man with the Long Black Coat’. As antithesis to a no regrets-type torch song, ‘If I Could Start Again’, where a man recounts his misspent life from a prison cell, could have been penned by Merle Haggard. The unrelenting ‘Trail of Tears’ is more akin to late-70’s Martin Rev robotics than anything ever created on a guitar. Alongside Gilpin and Hacker, Alan Cook’s sublime pedal steel guitar is omnipresent throughout the album. ‘Black Angel Drifter’ is an alt-country album that puts the rulebook through the shredder and starts again, set to put Urban Country on the map and give UK Alt-country an authentic new voice of its own, a voice that is genuinely original, new and exciting. Quotes : "They drift with phantom ease from spare, intimate, literate alt-country to a nuanced, weighted music bearing the marks of rock'n'roll history..." Classic Rock 8/10 // �…slow burning, emotional intensity" Mojo **** // “Imaginative concept album of delicious burlesque pop....ballads, odd funk grooves, lo-fi electro-pop a