Spiritual Beggars
Earth Blues

So, what to think of these guys clearly living in the past and possibly even in Hysteria with blue pipe smoking dragons partying to the music of the seventies? I grew up listening to the music of these guys’ idols like Rainbow, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, etc. and I think I also grew out of it in a way, I still like the music from Rising, Long Live Rock’n’Roll, and all of those great albums from that time but I also have to admit that much better music has arrived since that time. Neither am I a big fan of bands trying to emulate the music they adore and watch through rose tinted spectacles, nor am of the illusion that things were better then.There are some good stuff from that time but also a lot of poor stuff. So where does Spiritual Beggars fit into this big equation of people living in the past?

First of all, they are a side project for Arch Enemy’s Mike Amott and Sharlee D’Angelo, they have other guys at their side with experience from bands like Opeth, Grand Magus and more, lots more. And a greek singer. Earth Blues is the eighth album of these guys and it coincides with the band’s twentieth anniversary which is quite an impressive feat for a side project. It is impressive for a band to be going twenty years as well. Even so, the music these guys show for was old-fashioned when they started and is almost half a century outdated today. Still, what is wrong with a touch of nostalgia?

Nothing is wrong with nostalgia, and these guys do this for fun which can be heard in the joy of performance they show in this album. It is seventies flaired rock or hardrock, even in sound being recorded live in studio leaving a bit of imperfections in there. It reminds me extremely much about the bands I already mentioned earlier and it is quite catchy as well as melodic. The singer sounds a tad like Dio, I think he works really well for this album which only flaw in order to appear as a seventies album is the fact that it is fifty minutes in playing time.
It is a good album, interesting and a trip down memory lane. The thing is though that I cannot shake this feeling of déjà vu, and the thing is that no matter how well any band emulate what others have done before it still cannot really be the same thing or as good as the inspiration. I think this album speaks to me in so many way, and it is good but it is not magical and it not really something that will challenge my favourite bands but if you like seventies flavoured hard rock music, this is a great substitute for the real deal.

Nonetheless, as good as this album is it still cannot really convince me as to the validity of making music as in the past. It is like starting to make films with really poor story, poor acting, poor cinematography and poor visual effects again just because it was the best in someones nostalgic romanticised view of the past. But if you are one of those who thinks music was better in the seventies and thinks the past was just better, this is an album for you as with this album it is true, in a way.

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