Cactus - V
“The American version of Led Zeppelin”. That is what Cactus was called when they started to write songs in 1970. Maybe it is a coincidence, but the album title ‘V’ might well be a reflection towards this quote, being their fifth full-length album of course.
For those young people out there who haven’t been in contact with the band so far (just like me), the band plays a mixture of blues, rock and a bit of boogie-woogie, let’s name it boogie rock, and this is immediately being reflected in the raw music and lyrics. Cactus makes a statement; this music is for bad boys with lyrics like ‘Like your mama should have told’.
Although you would expect an overload of sounds, the record mainly contains bold guitar chords, allowing the vocals to go more to the front. Of course, guitar solo’s are present as you would expect which result in an easy to listen to album with pure rock songs like Muscle and Soul, Cactus Music and Shine (with a great, rolling guitar riff).
But as a result of this production, the songs get a bit bored after listening to them for a few times. At first, I thought it was nice to listen to some old rock tunes (where do you still see that these days?) but it all seemed to be lasting overtime. The bold sound is a bit frustrating, resulting into the idea that the music is divided into several parts instead of a whole composition in the form of a rock song. And that’s a pity, because it makes the album sound like some, at random collected, tunes that could have been replaced over and over again.
For the fans of the previous Cactus albums, ‘V’ is a fantastic surprise of course but considering the music industry today with such a lot of talent, I’d say you skip this one and search for something more complete.
64/1001Details Escapi Music
Released on Friday Jul 28th, 2006
Heavy Rock
Writer @CarpeSiem on Thursday Jul 13th, 2006
Tags: #Cactus
Tracklisting
1. Doing Time
2. Muscle and Soul
3. Cactus Music
4. The Groover
5. Hi in the City
6. Nite to Days
7. Livin\' for Today
8. Shine
9. Electric Blue
10. Brothers Keeper
11. Blues for Mr. Day
12. Blame/Game
13. Gone Train Gone
14. Jazzed
2. Muscle and Soul
3. Cactus Music
4. The Groover
5. Hi in the City
6. Nite to Days
7. Livin\' for Today
8. Shine
9. Electric Blue
10. Brothers Keeper
11. Blues for Mr. Day
12. Blame/Game
13. Gone Train Gone
14. Jazzed
Line up
Carmine Appice: drums
Tim Bogert: bass
Jimmy Kunes: vocals
Jim McCarty: guitar
Tim Bogert: bass
Jimmy Kunes: vocals
Jim McCarty: guitar