Album Review: Outlaw Orchestra – Back Under The Covers

The Breakdown

Capturing the sheer joy of a band doing it for themselves

– 8.2

Born from many a band jamming session to get into the mood for man a gig, Back Under The Covers is the new mini Album from the Outlaw Orchestra and is the perfect introduction to their style and musical talent.

The band comments:

“When backstage hanging with other bands and musicians, we like to warm up the fingers and voices jamming out covers. Everyone joins in, the bottle tops start to collect pretty fast and within an hour we’re stage ready. This is how we started out, busking around the kitchen table swapping instruments. Someone backstage said ‘you guys should record these, they’re great fun’. So with the help of portable technology we captured the more polished versions of our backroom jams into another collection of our favourite covers.”

With a superb feedback drenched guitar theatrics to start us off ‘Come Together’ takes inspiration from Aerosmith’s version just with added banjo. Gruff vocals from Rocker Dave and the rolling melody always makes the track a cracker no matter who does it and its presented here in a fine jamming form. One minute banjo another full on rock track with a smoking guitars.

Keeping true to the infections rhythms of ‘Itchy Coo Park’ is a great busking version of the track with just the right amount of production polish. Perfect track for this album as you can hear the joy that has gone into recording it. The vibe from this whole album is as if you are spying on the band jamming, the track there’s an intimate quality to the track.

Chunky rock guitars are out for the cover of Joe Walsh’s ‘Rocky Mountain Way’. Just listen to that cool slide on the intro as the band tip their hat to Walsh. Perfection. Dave’s vocals and the dirty rhythms meld together on this track so well you can hear the whisky swirling in the glass.

The slick country ‘Cripple Creek’ with its funky lead line and swinging chorus fits the band so well. Like Itchy Coo Park you can sense the band are playing this for themselves and it’s a song close to their hearts.

Sounding almost unrecognisable at first the bands version of Motorhead’s Iron Fist still retains the killer punch of the chorus. The driving drums of Ryan Thunder Smith and rapid fire banjo from Banjo Pete sets the scene as Dave lets rip with the slide guitar once again to wrap the track and the album up.

An album that’s filled with fun with some quality playing underneath the clear joy the band have for playing these tracks. No pressure no stress just the love of good music. They don’t stray far from the originals, just sprinkle them with their unique musical voices

Check out the band’s track Itchy Coo Park, below: