Label: Deram Records (Germany), 844 017-2
Style: Hard Rock, Blues Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 39:38
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 222 Mb
Like
so many metal albums of my youth, it started with the album cover. I
would see Looking In, the sixth album from England blues rock band Savoy
Brown constantly on my trips to the local record shops, and would
marvel at that delicious comic book artwork. But each and every time I'd
turn way, convinced it was just another run of the mill 70s rock and
roll record that could be ignored. But as I started digging more into
some of the obscure gems of the 70s I decided to stop ignoring that
cover and give it a shot.
I did some listening to the band's albums
around the same time period, but the thing I learned about Savoy Brown
is they almost never had the same line-up from album to album. In fact,
after Looking In everyone except lead guitarist Kim Simmonds left and
wound up forming Foghat. But don't compare Foghat's debut to Lookin In;
they are completely different beasts. After the brief instrumental
opening that is "Gypsy" the band moves into the heavy blues rocker "Poor
Girl" that is positively lit up with killer solos. The vamp is slow and
doom, but Simmonds's solos and the cadence of vocalist "Lonesome" Dave
Peverett give it a unique signature.
That kind of doom blues feel
permeates Looking In. "Money Can't Save Your Soul" Peverett's voice is
outstanding, and once again Simmonds leads the way with great guitar
licks. Power chords are pretty scarce here; this is drenched in the
blues, as songs like "Sunday Night" make abundantly clear. This is also
where the percussion really takes the stage. Roger Earl's drumming has a
wide soundstage and his use of toms to complement the usual 12-bar
blues beat stand out throughout the album. The title track gets a little
funky, but not enough to stray away from the overall dark tone of the
album which is as good an overall assessment of Looking In as any, I
guess.
By the time of the eight and half minute closer of "Leavin'
Again" (Followed by instrumental outro "Romanoff") it's easy to come to
the conclusion that – finely executed as it is – Looking In mirrors a
lot of what was going on (there are shades of early Led Zeppelin and
Yardbirds and Bluesbreakers all over), but I can't help but really be
drawn to how damn good the album sounds. This is Kim Simmonds's album
all over – he also produced it – and maybe that's why the band up and
left to create Foghat a year later. It's shame we never got more of this
style out of the band, but since it's new to me I'm happy to keep
playing it over and over again, finding new little joys in every lick.
(consumethetangible.com/2021/07/22/savoy-brown-looking-in-1970/)
Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog.
D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The
second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the
format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).
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