Second verse, same as the first
Black Country Communion offers more classic rock stylings on ’2′
There was a lot of talk about this classic rock supergroup when they debuted just last year with a highly-polished, Zepplinesque, guitar-fueled album, simply titled Black Country Communion. Former Trapeze/Deep Purple vocalist Glenn Hughes, ex-Dream Theater keys player Derek Sherinian, blues phenom Joe Bonamassa and drummer Jason Bonham (Foreigner, ex-Bonham) churned out a dozen slamming tunes produced by Kevin Shirley – a well-known, big rock knob-turner and the main reason that BCC even exists. It was Shirley that put Hughes and Bonamassa, who had sort of tentatively agreed to work together on a project, on the path of classic rock saviors. Initially, Hughes thought the pair might work on a more rootsy, Americana project, but Shirley saw the potential for a bombastic, guitar rock union… and after rounding up the other players, the band was set.
After the debut, the band made a pact to get together again – sooner rather than later – to pump out a follow-up. With two full length efforts under its wing, the group would take the material on tour. A recording session of 10 days last fall, double what the first effort took, resulted in BCC 2… another highly-polished, classic rock-charged effort that stays true to Shirley and the band’s original formula.
The second BCC album begins with ‘The Outsider’, a classic kick-starter, complete with machine-gun guitar riffage and pounding rhythms. It’s followed by ‘Man In The Middle’, Hughes ode to growing up in, and surviving, the business side of music.
The album gets its first of only two Bonamassa tunes next with ‘The Battle of Hadrian’s Wall’ – with its very Iron Maiden-sounding title… it refers to a very real landmark in Northern England. The song is fueled by a descending acoustic riff and Bonamassa’s lyrical mash-up of stories of the wall’s defense… and could have easily appeared on any of Joe’s previous three solo records.
Battling clean-up is ‘Save Me’… the Zeppelin song that wasn’t. The story goes that the riff of this song sprung from a jam between Jason Bonham, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones in the 2008, post O2 reunion concert sessions, when the trio tried to woo Robert Plant into giving the Zeppelin machine another go. When it became evident that Plant was not interested, the trio did ‘interview’ other potential singers, but in the end nothing came of it. When Bonham came in to the session for BCC 2, he’d asked Page and Jones if he could present the riff to his BCC band mates. With their blessing, the riff was passed around and ‘Save Me’ was born. While the lyrics are not particularly Zeppelinesque, the main riff and Middle-eastern overtones throughout the song are undeniable.
The album romps on with the more light-hearted ‘Smokestack Woman’ before landing in much heavier, darker subject matter on Hughes’ ‘Faithless’ and Bonamassa’s ‘Ordinary Son’. The latter is likely the linchpin of BCC 2 – a near eight-minute rollercoaster of emotion and deft guitar work where Bonamassa confesses, “And I feel that the time has come. All I ever wanted was to be an ordinary son.”
The last third of the record is more no-nonsense, big riff rock that closes with ‘Cold’, a slower tempo, reverb-drenched lament to an absentee partner.
The one complaint I can see will haunt BCC 2 is it’s similarities with the first offering… kind of like a sequel to a movie that basically retreads over the formula that worked pretty well the first time (see: The Hangover). There are a few remarkable differences between the two albums. The most obvious is the increased, and welcomed, participation on BCC 2 of Sherinian’s keyboard work, which too often was drowned out by the others on the first album. Second is the subject matter, which takes a more somber, darker turn on the lion’s share of the BCC 2 songs.
In the end, BCC might not be the classic rock savoirs that some anointed them, but they certainly offer an enjoyable helping of guitar-driven rock-and-roll on a sonic landscape of popular music that desperately needs it.
Rating: 
