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Redvette - Redvette

geoviangeovian Earth Orbit
edited December 2022 in Year-1982

image

ARTIST: Redvette
ALBUM: Redvette
LABEL: Redvette
YEAR: 1982

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: image

LINEUP: Joe White - vocals * Kevin Luce - guitars * Tim Girard - keyboards * Jack Gleason - bass * Grant Walthal - drums

TRACK LISTING: 01 Coast To Coast * 02 Bent On Success * 03 Earth Mover * 04 One Night, One Lover * 05 How Can You Love Me * 06 Crazy Love * 07 Love's Got A Hold * 08 Hog Heaven * 09 Leadfoot * 10 Time Keeps On Slippin'

Background

Redvette were a short-lived band that came from San Francisco (Redwood City), and graced us with a one-off album back in 1982. If I recall, the original vinyl was red, something afforded by its independent status.

The album despite its indie claims was imported to the UK, which is where I first heard about these guys through the some of the sales lists/ads by long-lost fave store Shades.

The music is good solid melodic rock with keyboards. Nothing earth-shattering, it is ham-fisted at times, but it has favorable comparisons with bands like Angel, Jagwire and when the keyboards fire up (particularly the organ work) then a comparison to a workingman's Legs Diamond is appropriate.

The Songs

The addition of keyboards within Redvette help colour what is essentially a hard driving guitar oriented album.

The opener 'Coast To Coast' features Boston like guitar parts and this early on in the piece, Kevin Luce gets to let loose.

It's all party-anthem stuff on 'Bent On Success', while the organ flurries are prominent on 'Earth Mover'.

Redvette drop back to mid-tempo mode on 'One Night, One Lover'. I guess this is their token slow-mo moment.

Picking up to party-anthem speed again is 'How Can You Love Me' followed by the southern swamp rock of 'Crazy Love', which could've been a favourite of barroom patrons in Florida.

The keyboards sound positively dated on 'Love's Got A Hold'. Now ordinarily I am a fan of keyboards being used to embellish a song, but Tim Girard's use of a sine-wave oriented synth patch is awful.

'Hog Heaven' is pretty silly really, a rawk and rawl song fit for the farm. Thankfully, the final pairing of 'Leadfoot' and 'Time Keeps On Slippin' takes on a Legs Diamond assault and finishes the album with a bit of hurry and flurry.

Great stuff. After an encouraging start and a dodgy middle section, thankfully we have both barrels burning at the tail-end.

In Summary

Apparently, the story goes that the band more or less fractured during the production/mixing process, obviously not happy with the final result.

You see, it doesn't really matter whether you are a top-line act or not. Perfection is still a sought-after commodity even among the lesser lights.

Still, a worthwhile addition if you can track it down that is, because after many years since, this is as rare as rockinghorse droppings.

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