It’s a rainy summer here in the UK. I was walking down the main street in my little town only yesterday, passing this group of teenage girls clinging desperately to their obligatory summer wear of desperately short skirts and trainers as the rain stubbornly fell. There was me with my hoodie and umbrella pressing home to listen to a track named “Streets of Rain.” Life imitates art, or the other way around.
I was heading out in the rain as I have a heavy cold, so I was unsure whether a dose of the blues, or ‘Lemsip’ was what I needed, but I’d picked this review from the intray, labelled for my attention, and felt like reducing that intray a bit.
In old parlance, this is a “double A” side single. And it is quite nice to review a double release. Both singles were released on July 12.
I’m going to start with “Streets of Rain.”
The press release tells me, ‘The evocative Hammond organ playing of B3 wizard Lachy Doley and the chorused electric guitar and acoustic tease out the melancholy of “Streets of Rain.”
“It’s a song about loss,” says Louw. “Although our pain is personal, you are not alone. When it’s coming down on you, it feels like you’ll never get out of there, but you will.”
“Lachy is one of the greatest Hammond players in the world, right up there with Steve Winwood and Booker T,” says Kevin Shirley. “When I was finishing off Streets of Rain, I knew his playing would be perfect. His beautiful solo captures the essence of the song.”
And my review: “Streets of Rain” appears after “Killers,” but I just feel like doing it first. It is lamentful, rather introspective and beautiful in its own way. Loss is loss, and it comes in many forms. I guess it reminds me a bit of Peter Criss’ “I Can’t Stop the Rain” from his 1978 solo album. Both songs connect the rain to the emotion of loss, yet, the rain also brings life and renewal to the land! Speaking personally, the loss of key people hasn’t gone away over time, in many respects, the loss got worse as the years slipped by. It’s a sad song with beauty inside.
As for “Killers,” the press release tells me that “Killers” reflects the madness of waging war on each other. The song was written after hearing an audio clip of intercepted radio chatter in the first few weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The intense guitar-driven track’s energy evokes feelings of helplessness and rage.
“I wanted the song to feel spiritual, powerful, and cutting and exist on different time planes,” says Louw. “When we recorded Killers, it felt like we were stepping across into an earlier flickering time.”
Killers: opens with a melodic tribal style chant and tells us, “From the East they Came, raining down pain on everyone they saw.”
The references to the trail of tears further reference connections to the American tribal past. The drum sound and melody underline the passion of the lyrics. The song repeats the “Killers” theme and notes ‘numbers, not names’ the sense of the Genghis Khan era of Mongol hordes. There is this juxtaposition of images as pain continues in every era. Mankind never changes.
And there we are, double trouble from Steve Louw! I look forward to the new album and these are really worth a stream from all of you to enjoy those blues mixed with a bit of Americana.
I’m off for that paracetamol and Lemsip now! But as a finishing point, to keep us improving the magazine, we really do need your support, and if you can go to the ‘Support Us’ button, it helps us feel appreciated and keep improving the magazine. We also have our merchandise shop, Lorraine, looking great in the gear! Read on, check out our many great features and reviews, and do bookmark us on your pages!
You can stream the singles from here
By Stevie Ritson