Various "Trail Of The New Riders: A Tribute To The New Riders Of The Purple Sage“ (Flowerproductions 2007)

Harmonies in A Swedish way………

New Riders of the Purple Sage mixed psychedelic rock with country (cosmic rock) and this album features 11 songs from ten different bands all paying homage to a “sadly overlooked” band. Well I’m not sure about that.

‘The Sleepbeats’, ‘The Celophane Flower’ (who have two tracks here) and ‘The Sonic Barrels’ provide the opening three tracks here and they’re all pretty faithful to the NRPS route.

Each band (all from Sweden) try to utilise the harmonies that NRPS were renowned for, and there are mixed results as to whether they add anything over and above the originals. But as they were pretty good the first time around then perhaps this is to be expected. Great songs stand the test of time and some simply can’t be improved on.

Taken from their first four albums these tracks will probably do little to bring NRPS to a wider audience, which is apparently its primary objective. Unfortunately CSNY, Grateful Dead (of which the NRPS were formed as a side project) Poco or The Flying Burrito Brothers do it all a lot better.

This album contains most of the tracks you’d expect including ‘All I Ever Wanted’, ‘Kick In The Head’, ‘I Don’t Know You’ and ‘Last Lonely Eagle’. But there’s no ‘Henry’, ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’ or Panama Red’?

Of the tracks here the opener ‘California Day’ (The Sleepbeats), ‘Last Lonely Eagle’ (Titte Carlsson & The Last Band Standing) and the Hendrix influenced ‘Death & Destruction’ (by Ducks Can Groove, clocking in at 16 minutes?) are the stand out tracks.

If you’re a NRPS fan then this probably won’t ingratiate you further to them. And if you’re not and were hoping that this would give you a feel for whether you’d enjoy their music then you may be disappointed.

So I suggest you buy one of the original NRPS albums or even ‘The Best Of…’ and go from there. And if you do already like them then check this album out to hear some alternate versions.

Oh yeah – to the press release writer – please use the spell checker next time. It demonstrates a certain degree of professionalism. If you don’t care, why should we?

Date review added:  Monday, April 16, 2007
Reviewer:  Phil Edwards
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  Trail Of The New Riders website