7 Cities 7 Songs – Sons of Silver (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

If studio albums are the place that a band gets to make themselves sound the best they can, the live stage is where they prove who they are. All too often, bands hit the road with a poised, polished, and powerful set of songs and fail to deliver them live. Similarly, a road-tested band with an excellent gigging reputation can lose face quickly when that sound isn’t reproduced in the studio. Sons of Silver is a band that sounds equally ferocious in both mediums, and 7 Cities 7 Songs is the sound of them proving that their live chops are as equally exciting as their studio prowess.

Some of my favorite albums of the past are live albums, – Jethro Tull‘s Bursting Out, Peter Frampton Comes Alive, and, of course, the Thin Lizzy masterpiece Live and Dangerous (all incidentally recorded within a few years of each other). For the rock and roll fan of the current era, 7 Cities 7 Songs sites in a similar place in the modern musical canon.

It is, without sounding full of fluff and hyperbole, faultless. It helps, of course, that here we have a band that writes great songs, but delivering them live isn’t a given for anyone treading the boards. Here, they put on a masterclass of the live show, so much so that just through the music alone, you can picture the band punching it out, the audience lapping it up, the lights, the moves, the smell of sweat and beer, the grind…it all pours out of your speakers carried by the music.

As “Read ‘Em There Rights” kicks in, you know that you are in safe hands, cool and classy, grand and gritty, melodic and muscular, powerful and pacy; it’s the first salvo from a rock and roll seven-shooter giving it everything it has.

“Giving it Back” acquires a brilliant gothic quality live, brooding and understated (relatively speaking). “Tell Me This” is built on squalling infectiousness, an energetic groove, and growling riffs, and “Who’s Gonna Stop Us” asks a very pertinent question, given the relentless onslaught of music they deliver. Who indeed?

Live albums might be a rarer commodity these days, but this is one that any and every discerning rock fan, and just fans of great music in general, needs in their collection. Live? Yes. Dangerous? Without a doubt.