Red Moon Joe
Album: Midnight Trains
Label: Dbs
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.redmoonjoe.com

Red Moon Joe folded back in '93 after some eight years together as a band. Back in 2010, country guitar picker, Mark Wilkinson, came to the conclusion that the band still had unfinished business. Blues Brothers style, he rounded up the band, added multi-instrumentalist Steve Conway and the rest, as they say, is history.

"Midnight Trains" is about as country a title as you can get, actually thinking about it Red Moon Joe ain't far off either. I use the word country advisedly as that's what this music is easily identifiable as, good honest in your face country, complete, and resplendent with the odd yodel.

Mandolins, steel guitars and blues harps all the classic instruments are here as well as the traditional subject matter, women, bars, trains and small country towns where everyone knows your name. Songs of loss and dealing with the life that gets thrown at you, there are definite elements on this album that you think you've heard before, even if you've never heard the words put in quite this order.

In fairness you probably have, but its good honest fun and a good way to while away forty five odd minutes. Red Moon Joe, know how to put a set together, to deliver what they enjoy doing and make sure the whole thing is entertaining. If they were the house band at my local bar, I'd be more than happy and I'm pretty sure the landlord would be too.

I don't know if it's coincidence or part of something bigger that's going on in country, but I seem to have listened to a couple or so albums lately that have name checked, a country star from the previous generation in the title, on this occasion it's "Guy Clark" and a tongue in cheek reference to having once rolled the guy a cigarette.

Whilst there isn't a stand out track on "Midnight Trains", that might indicate that they are a band that might be able to step up into the premier league of country bands, there isn't a duffer that their boxing above their weight. This is good honest country, no more, no less and for those 45 minutes, that's good enough.

Neil King