Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs

Mike Campbell, Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs – External Combustion (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 44:44 minutes | 561 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BMG Rights Management (US) LLC

Admittedly, Mike Campbell’s first album with the Dirty Knobs two years ago passed me by to some extent. Although the songs of Tom Petty would not have been scalded without Campbell’s pointed guitar playingthe same ones, of course, and also what he does on Don Henley’s “The Boys Of Summer”, for example, is terrific – but when accompanying musicians become bandleaders, it often doesn’t turn out too exciting. The songs on EXTERNAL COMBUSTION have not become innovative either, but, and this is the crucial thing, they are well done. In the lyrics: classic American motifs – sitting blind with love in the greyhound bus, demons in the There was a hole in the head and in the heart, big enough for a semi-trailer to pass through. Plus heartland rock, British Invasion, hints of heavy rock, a blues shuffle in between. “State Of Mind” is a pretty Americana ballad, with country singer Margo Price singing along and using soulful winds towards the end, in the lost-looking “In This Lifetime” the drums are just caressed, we hear a slide guitar. The songs have something, yes, touching about them – that’s what distinguishes Campbell from so many younger Americana epigones, who only pretend authenticity and depth.
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