Austin Gold – Before Dark Clouds 2017 Deluxe w/ bonus trax

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AUSTIN GOLD‘s new album album recently featured here at plotn08 resulted one of the best of the year so far, and many of you asked for the British rockers debut “Before Dark Clouds“. This physical CD on digipak has become pretty hard to find, and we include here the two bonus tracks from the digital version of “Before Dark Clouds”.

After listen the first song you can’t believe this is a debut LP. There’s something disconcerting about the way these Peterborough rockers seem to spring fully formed from this first album. The band are based firmly along the Free / Bad Company axis, but there’s an unexpected poise and maturity on the opening tight and impressive ‘Brand New Love’, and also on the title track where they allow the song to build its own momentum.

At the time of this debut record, singer David James Smith doesn’t sounds like a vocalist still working to find his style: his confidence is impressive. Guitarist James Cable has already carved out a niche for himself with his prog-styled flavourings.
Russell Hill’s Hammond adds grandeur and contributes to a wall of sound that pushes tracks such as ‘Home Against Home’ – complete with a very familiar opening guitar figure – into post Floydian prog influences.

Also adding some early Whitesnake and Thunder wrapped by a modern production Austin Gold is not afraid to tackle a broad range of songs here. “Before Dark Clouds” is an album that never bore you and keep interested on what’s next.
It’s the band’s collective writing that is the key and makes the material sound like a real unit, a fact beautifully captured by Andy Hawkins’s warm production.

The bone crunching riffs of ‘Another Kinda Bad’ finds them slipping into hard rock mode with significant chord changes and the kind of sweeping melodic chorus that might even provide peripheral interest to what’s left of rock station play lists.
A mix of rockers and ballads in fairly equal measure, Austin Gold are at their best when pushing their collective feet to the metal, and had they been around in ‘the day’ the band would have been the perfect fit for a deal with Swansong Records.

The title track also suggests a band with real maturity and poise. The midtempo funky opening groove features a more restrained vocal from Smith, as the band lets the song percolate before heading into a sing-along hook. Better still, there’s a lovely mid number segue – separated by a small, but pregnant pause between Smith confident phasing and Cable’s ascending Gilmour style solo – on a triumph of flow and artistic vision.
They rock out on ‘Roadside’, a number that has a great stop-time hook and a gnawing guitar solo. ‘All The Way Down’ illustrates their melodic bent and highlights Smith’s vocal prowess, before a southern rock style double harmony guitar break and a gentle drop down.

It’s rare for a new band to nail their style so early in their career, but ‘Before Dark Clouds’ ticks all the right boxes. On the one hand it’s an old fashioned album that flows from beginning to end to become a coherent composite. On the other hand, there’s enough variety here to satisfy the download generation’s penchant for individual tracks.
Highly Recommended

01 – Brand New Low
02 – Another Kinda Bad
03 – Before Dark Clouds
04 – Wishing Away
05 – The Reason
06 – Home Ain’t Home
07 – Roadside
08 – All The Way Down
09 – See The Light
10 – Never Come Back
BONUS TRACKS:
11 – Another Kinda Bad (Radio Edit)
12 – See The Light (Radio Edit)

Vocals, Guitar – David James Smith
Guitar – Andy Hawkins, Jack Cable
Bass – Lee Churchill
Drums – Chris Ogden
Keyboards, Percussion – Andy Hawkins
Hammond, Keyboards – Russell Hill

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