Gently eclectic, well produced and containing excellent musicianship.
Although he has released two solo albums in the US, guitarist and singer Rusty Anderson is undoubtedly best known as a side-man to Paul McCartney, in the onetime Beatle’s touring band. Drawing together the best songs from those US albums, ‘Until We Meet Again’ is a collection of six songs from 2003’s ‘Undressing Underwater’, five from 2009’s ‘Born On Earth’ and one exclusive new track, from which the album takes its name.
McCartney himself guests on bass and backing vocals on the album’s opening track ‘Hurt Myself’, which jangles into sight with a fairly rockin’, but ultimately chart friendly shimmy. While Rusty proves to be a fine singer with a good range and an eye for the sort of 70’s tinged hooks that aren’t quite Rock, but crunch a little too convincingly to be considered Pop. Other musicians come and go from track to track, with Police drummer Stewart Copeland proving his percussive prowess on the Surfer dude meets The Shadows, with a hint of reggae, instrumental ‘Catbox Beach’. However this is Rusty’s show, with his charismatic, unfussy guitar playing making for a likeable, if slightly unremarkable album - and it has to said, the boy really can sing.
You could easily imagine Keane, or even Cold Play crooning their way through ‘Baggage Claim’, although the gentle strum of the utterly twee and barf inducing ode to Julia Roberts, cleverly titled ‘Julia Roberts’, does highlight that more thorough use of the edit button would have improved this album on more than one occasion. The grinding riff and beefed up guitars of ‘Devil’s Spaceship’ sits somewhere between The Black Crowes, The Hives and Beck, finding Rusty offering up a Blues guitar showman side to his playing that we don’t get to hear often enough. Whereas ‘Coming Down To Earth’ tries to mould The Beatles with Neil Young to decent effect.
Gently eclectic, well produced and containing excellent musicianship, there’s much to like about Rusty Anderson and ‘Until We Meet Again’, but whether there’s a huge amount for a Fireworks or Rocktopia reader to get really excited about, well that’s another matter...
Steven Reid
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