Favez - Bigger Mountains, Higher Flags Album Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Favez
Bigger Mountains, Higher Flags
Gentlemen
Album Review

Quick, name a Swiss rock group... If you're as stumped as most, Favez will now top the list. From Lausanne, this is the band's sixth album of retro-rock - retro in the sense that it involves big guitars, big choruses and anthemic songs, but not in the big hair sense. The music is later-Tom-Petty-mid-Springsteen-impersonator-Hold-Steady hard edged, but with the dynamics of Feeder.

It is big, unpretentious, almost Australian in feel - no surprise with Aussie Greg Wales at the helm - the sound recalls Midnight Oil or Hoodoo Gurus in the way that a hot wind seems to blow through the grooves, and mixes in some Americana in the way that fans of the Broken Family Band would recognise. Piano and organ leavens the mix under and through gritty guitars and a husky lead vocal. You should come to this record without prejudice, without preconceptions, and without a headache: your head will be rocking back and forth in no time.

3.5/5

Mike Rea