It is an unfortunate fact that real life keeps on interfering with one of my true passions, namely live music, and assorted circumstances have conspired to prevent me from catching Ruby The Hatchet live during one of their forays to the UK. Instead I’ve been limited to just listening to their assorted albums and E.P.’s, and damn me if this fantastic five piece haven’t played a blinder with their latest ‘Fear Is A Cruel Master’.

‘The Change’ starts off the proceedings with an insistent, charging instrumental hook that is strangely counterpointed by the laconic delivery of Jillian Taylor’s vocals, the contrasting styles and way her voice weaves around the beats in the verses and is echoed and layered on the chorus giving the track a nineties Indy feeling, with shades of Elastica’s ‘Waking Up’. Now, that may not be a comparison anyone would be expecting from a site dedicated to the darker side of music, but the scribes of Ave Noctum have a wide and varied background. By comparison the opening guitar of ‘Deceiver’ jumps even further back in time with a respectful helping of Iommi worship to give the listener’s neck a thorough workout, the addition of vocals, pounding bass and drums, and a swirling keyboard ensuring a well exercised trapezius. If that number was not enough to have you moving, ‘Primitive Man’ should remedy that, mixing a bluesy stomp with the musical virtuosity of Deep Purple, and distilling it down into a heavy psychedelic treat.

The pace is reined back by ‘Soothsayer’, the opening minutes being served up with a ‘lighters in the air’ sway, the restrained nature of the music carrying aloft the siren song of Jillian Taylor before it builds up layer by layer into what should be a centrepiece of the band’s stadium filling performance. Why acts like Ruby The Hatchet and Blues Pills aren’t filling enormo-domes is something that makes my mind boggle; I guess it’s a matter of changing and devolving tastes in popular music as if this album had been released at the same time as something like ‘Rumours’ it would be selling by the bus load. Deep breath, rant about modern pop charts over, and back to the reviewing. Next up is the Prog heavy ‘Soothsayer’, a number that would have had the Old Grey Whistle Test rocking and Bob Harris whispering with glee, whilst the band get their occult sound on with the heavier ‘Thruster’, a song that The Living Dead of ‘Psychomania’ or the Gravedigger’s of ‘Stone’ could have happily rocked out to, an aesthetic backed up by the biker-movie video the band released to accompany it. The adrenaline dump inspired by this gasoline fuelled romp is mellowed out by the soothing ‘Last Saga’, whilst the album is brought to a close by the heavy love of ‘Amor Gravis’, a final swaggering and assured helping of confident retro rock that pulls together equal parts of Black Widow, Blue Oyster Cult, and Coven to create a song that seamlessly spans the ages from the birth of heavy rock to the modern day.

Ruby The Hatchet have created in ‘Fear Is A Cruel Master’ an album they can be truly proud of, and one that in a just and fair world see them playing to every larger and more appreciative audiences. Hopefully the vagaries of circumstances will allow me to catch them live soon, but until then this album is going onto regular rotation in my household, and I suggest you treat yourself to it too.

(9/10 Spenny)

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https://thehatchet.bandcamp.com/album/fear-is-a-cruel-master