All Night CD

All Night: Art, Sanders (vocals, guitar); Nikos (bass, background vocals); John, Neckbone (drums).
Recording information: Treehouse Mobile Studio (2002).
After Cream broke up in the late '60s, there were tons of bands, in both the U.S. and U.K., that played journeyman bluesy hard rock. They didn't have songwriters and instrumentalists as good and distinctive as those in bands like Cream, but they were plugged into a similar path: rock music indebted to the blues, but not merely heavy versions of blues songs (though there was some of that, of course). They tended to play with less finesse and more bluntness than Cream or the Rolling Stones, and tended to fill out the ranks of the touring circuit, either as support acts or as second-division headliners. All Night sound like one of those bands with their loud and lumpy blues-rock and lurching tempos and boogies, the difference being that they emerged 30 years after this genre had its heyday. It's capably done, but it still falls somewhere between the level of the ordinary bar band and the one you might have seen supporting Free, Terry Reid, or the like back in the day. It's a little more enjoyable when they mellow out the cock rock just a bit for pieces that draw more from the Rolling Stones than the boogie-metal merchants, like "Say You're Scared" and "Lonely." ~ Richie Unterberger