The latest side-project by the Battlefield Band's longest-serving member, vocalist and keyboard player Alan Reid, finds him lining up with the group's Dutch-born regular sound engineer, Rob van Sante -- the latter emerging from behind the desk to reveal himself as a fine singer and guitarist. Again, the bulk of the songs are originals, most of them being Reid's compositions. 

Though at times his delivery is a little on the couthy side, there's no disputing his songwriting craft, nor that on darker, harder-edged tracks like 54 Winters, his voice and words form a powerful mesh. 

However, van Sante's two vibrantly plaintive lead-vocal turns, on a new arrangement of the faithless-seducer ballad The Bold Grenadier, and his own setting of ex-miner Joe Corrie's poem A Cage Load Of Men, prove his to be the richer voice.

Back to CD reviews   |   Return to welcome page