Williamson Brothers
Aquila
*** out of *****
The Birmingham, AL based outfit Williamson Brothers deliver their brand of lo-fi, punkish, southern rock and roll on their newest offering, Aquila. The twelve-song offering recorded at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, MS has a cool combo of grit and grime along with some spit and polish.
Adam and Blake Williamson have been musicians their whole lives, and recently were the backbone of Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires. On Aquila, Adam and Blake play guitar, bass and handle vocals while Mike Gault covers drums and percussion. A few friends drop in to add accents and flair throughout the album.
The group is at home with buzzing amps and slapping drums, the opening "American Original" is a hard driving rocker. When the Brothers ramp up the tempo and energy things work best such as on the distorted and motoring punk ready "Motoring Generation" and "Dance Machine" which takes an Oblivions garage rock idea and revs it up nicely with a party ready chorus. The pulsing fuzzed up tale of young punk love and loss "Give Me Peace" is fun as is the very groove rock orientated "Medicine" which bangs and slams with exuberance.
The Williamson Brothers sweet spot seems to be taking prime era Rolling Stones and Who inspiration and distilling it through their southern bootlegging ways. "All of These Years" gets swaggering and glammy with some help from Jay Gonzalez keyboards, "Good Boy" gets the country twang weepy along with John Calvin Abney's harmonica while album closer "All Lit Up" slowly builds up the drama with Hank West adding saxophone while the title track might be the best of the bunch with confidence and power it could have fit easily on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.
One area where the Williamson Brothers don't feel as confident is in the vocal department as the lead singer gets buried often by guitars and other sounds. "Twenty First Century" is the best example of this as the tune plays like it could have been an alt-rock 90's MTV sleeper, but you need to dig in to get to the lyrics which address divisions in society. Putting the vocals a bit more out front would help get those strong points across.
Fans of driving Southern hard rock with punkish energy and fuzzed up guitars will find a lot to love on the Williamson Brothers newest offering, Aquila.
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