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Review: 'Masterton, Adam'
'Time Bomb'   


-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '17th February 2023'

Our Rating:
It’s interesting to see just how album releases have changed in recent years. Time was when everything got released on a Monday, on all formats (apart from perhaps a limited edition a week later to boost sales and chart position), and I would peg it into town on a Monday sometimes after sixth form, but always, on my non-working day, to scoop up new releases, back when £40 would bag a fair pile of vinyl, especially 7” singles at a couple of quid or so a pop. Now, Friday is the favoured day and the different formats often land weeks or even months apart, as is the case with Adam Masterson’s ‘Time Bomb’, where the vinyl and CD aren’t due till July. Still, the positive aspect of this is that the promo push isn’t all over a fortnight after the initial release and albums are allowed to have a longer, slower diffusion, as they did way back – like in the 80s when you might only discover an album on the release of the third or fourth single up to a year after its release.

Masterton is very much a slow diffusion kind of artist. Despite having, according to his bio, ‘shared stages with the likes of Tori Amos, Amy Winehouse and Stereophonics (in actual stadiums), guested with Patti Smith and Mick Jones (The Clash), while publications such as The Guardian, Billboard and American Songwriter have all gushed with praise about his previous output’, ‘Time Bomb’ is only his second album, and it’s landing some 20 years after his debut, ‘One Tale Too Many’.

This ‘Time Bomb’ clearly has a very long fuse, and features a roll-call of ‘name’ contributors to a collection of songs that you can chuck comparisons to myriad ‘classic’ artists, from Springsteen to Weller.

But from the contemplative and expansive piano-led title track to the swaggering bluesy country rock of ‘Take A Little Love’ via the haunting ‘Chains’, the radio-friendly rock of Avenue Walk’, and ‘The Kiss’ that comes on like Dire Straits with soul, Masterton has served up an album that offers up no shortage of surprises. For all of the classic rock tropes, there are some strongly contemporary twists in the production and overall approach to the songs.

Lyrically, Masterton mines well-dug seams, with ‘Bring Back the Freaks’, while making reflecting on how mundane things have become – and immediately becoming a nostalgia cliché – being the most obvious and mawkish of the album’s songs, referencing radios, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, factory work. But most of it is rather better: the dark, tense ‘Chains’ which follows immediately compensates.

Masterton’s voice – and vocal range – is a strong point, his gravelly tones suddenly elevating an octave to soar magnificently. ‘Time Bomb’ may be an album angled for the more mature crowd rather than the yoof, but it has some zest and vibrance, and it’s definitely got range.



  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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