Album review: These Wicked Rivers – Force Of Nature

It’s just the most delicious trip; everything about These Wicked Rivers. Like the band members themselves, this long-awaited album appears to have slipped through time and space, the best qualities of 1970s muscle car Americana injected with stuff that’s interchangeably heavy, emotional, grungy or just plain uplifting.

The latter certainly informs The Family, a huge-hearted singalong built on the band’s oft expressed idea that they and we are one big brother and sisterhood. Then there’s The Riverboat Man, a cautionary tale of dabbling with the devil that’s as rootsy and rocky as Rival Sons, and the brutally dense six-string surge that plunges us into Lord Knows. In contrast, Just To Be A Man and the stripped bare Lonely Road are raw with introspective feels – completely unlike Testify which sneaks around seemingly gospel-tinged until its rock-fuelled and saucily libidinous intent is revealed.

All impressive enough, but its live favourite Don’t Pray For Me and the ascendent When The War Is Won that truly separate this band from its peers. The latter is the type of emotive voodoo that can’t be taught; you can either summon such a thing from inside you or, more likely, cannot. Borne from a beautiful Arran Day guitar motif, it caringly travels from suicidal doubt to wide-eyed redemption.

At the centre of all this is frontman John Hartwell, whose abundant talent and daily overcoming of physical challenge is starting to elevate him into one of British rock’s most inspirational new figures. On band showpiece Don’t Pray Me For, this glow shines so brightly that only a man of John’s modesty could fail to notice it. The song’s new video segues live footage of the clearly emotional frontman into the body of this grandstanding anthem. It’s been ages coming, but These Wicked Rivers just found safe passage.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Clutch, Greta Van Fleet, Rival Sons

Force Of Nature is out now via Fat Earth