Hale's Pleasure Railway - Southpaw Steel 'n' Twang - New Release Review
I just received a new release, Hale's Pleasure Railway from Southpaw Steel 'n' Twang and it's really an eclectic blast! Opening with Open Field , Ville Leppanen plays some distinctively American country style pedal steel guitar riffs over jazz grass riffs on guitar. Joined by Tero Mikkonen on drums and JP Monkkonen on bass, these guys have concocted a formula that really successfully blends country, jazz, blues and bluegrass sounds in an exciting way. Bayou , again with pedal steel lead has a bit of muted strings and jazz fusion funk sounds. This is a great track. Alternating between picking and slide is a cool effect for this all instrumental track. Secret Sunset has a distinctively Hawaiian sound even including ukulele. Ville breaks away from the solid Hawaiian slide work and picks a bit giving the track texture but this thing is all tropical. Bad Alley has a beautiful classical (electric) intro before entering into a modern take on swamp blues and gypsy jazz wi...