Redeemed – Phil Gammage (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

The ability to write music that feels new and fresh, but also familiar enough to suggest that you have been listening to the song your entire life, is a rare skill. But it is one that Phil Gammage demonstrates the length and breadth of his latest album, Redeemed.

The album reminds us that all the great, and indeed necessary, genres have already found their perfect form—folk, country, blues, rock and roll—all know what they are about, where they have come from, and where they are going. All the astute modern troubadour has to do is weave them together in slightly new ways. The result is music that is wonderfully recognisable yet which still brings something new to the sonic party.

Kicking off with Good Place, we get an instant lesson in just how to do that, a jaunty folk piece that sounds like a classic from the moment you get to that first strutting, thumping post-chorus interlude. The title track is a lush old-time ballad, a neat intertwining of strummed guitar and chiming piano; Prisoner of Love ebbs and flows on shimmering sonics and the swells of the old Hammond organ, and Phil’s Boogie is a gorgeously raucous and ragged slice of R&B.

It’s a great album, and it reminds us that there is no need to invent new genres or fuse sounds together to stay ahead of the curve, not when there is so much life left in the ones that we already have.