Wednesday 27 November 2013

Review: Mojo Makers - Wait till the Morning


Mojo Makers - Wait till the Morning (Hypertension)
Reportedly held in some regard in their native Denmark, ‘Wait till the Morning’ is the first sighting (hearing) on these shores of retro blues-rock band Mojo Makers. Credit is due for a set of fair enough, homespun songs (chiefly by vocalist/guitarist Kasper Osman, often in collaboration with Davis Rosenkilde) and some enterprising guitar work from Kristian Hoffman.

For the most part however there’s a nagging suspicion that the whole as heard here may actually be less than the sum of its parts. Settling into a mellow seventies blues rock groove, the spirit of the album owes much to the estimable Free, not just in musical style, but in the muddiness of the mix.

With overtly swampy material such as ‘Faster With the Gun’, or the title track itself there’s no issue; elsewhere however – ‘Red Lights’ and ‘Up to You’ for example – there’s never enough head of steam generated to really hold interest. Ditto ‘The Devil’ and ‘Wild Moon Child’, gospel-tinged hard rockers which in the hands of Clutch could be weapons of mass destruction, here seem somehow less convincing than they should. Full and fruity penultimate number ‘Let Me Take You There’, with its enthusiastic washes of organ and added vigour, proves a strident exception and is hopefully a sign of better to come.
Neil B.

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