It is a common belief, within the music industry, that those collectives called "Supergroups", which would include a cast of stellar musicians gathered together for special projects, very rarely work well together, often because of each musicians' ego and strong personality, where each of the Supergroup's members would expect to be the dominant feature on said projects in their own right, overshadowing, in this way, the quality of the finished products that get printed and released on the market.
Rather fortunately, though, this is not the case of Black Country Communion, a very special project born in 2010 which includes "The Voice Of Rock" Glenn Hughes on bass guitar and vocals, Blues/Rock Guitar Titan Joe Bonamassa on guitars and vocals, Rock Drummer Extraordinaire Jason Bonham and Prog/Rock Keyboards Maestro Derek Sherinian, which, after 4 studio albums and a live one, all overlooked by Kevin Shirley on the production room, have now released a brand new album simply called V, a record that epitomizes the idea of 4 highly skilled artists working together with the sole goal of delivering a record of remarkable depth, as V has clearly demonstrated to be.
Described by Glenn Hughes to the press as a monumental body of work in the history of Black Country Communion, V can be indeed described as the most cohesive and creative record ever released by this superb collective, where a true celebration of each of the musicians' musical roots can be spotted by the listener at every point of the record.
Hard-Rock is, naturally, at the very core of the Supergroup's sonic manifesto, with some cleverly high-octane fuelled layers of Funk and Prog-Rock scattered here and there into the 10 songs included in V, adding to the whole body of work an intense and powerful dynamic.
Each of V's songs constitutes the ultimate statement of the charisma and the class of each of Black Country Communion's band members; Jason Bonham is absolutely pitch perfect at every point to the record, with his hammering drumming style, resonating precision, power, accuracy and swagger, whilst effortlessly adapting his playing style to Funk, Hard/Rock or Progressive in such a natural and organic way; Derek Sherinian's keyboard playing exudes not only undisputable class, but also such an understated but vital element to the final assembling of each and every song, creating, through Sherinian's unique playing style, that layer of Rock escapism that works so well within the whole context of V; Joe Bonamassa's talent as a Guitar Maestro is undisputed and vastly renowned worldwide but, in terms of working within a collective like this, Bonamassa's talent as a Team Player has never shone, in our opinion, as well as on Black Country Communion's V, where his many guitar solos are particularly inspired and never over-worked; Glenn Hughes is such a force of nature now, at 72 years of age, as much as he has been throughout his whole career, providing some energic and stylised bass lines and some of the best vocals ever heard on any of the previous BCC's records.
The stratospheric talent of each of BCC's band member reflects very well in each of the songs included in V, both from a compositional and a sonic aspect, with a particular mention to songs like Red Sun, Love And Faith, Too Far Gone and Skyway, where the phenomenal artistic combustion between Hughes, Sherinian, Bonham and Bonamassa creates a pyrotechnical, visceral and unstoppable explosion of highly stylish Hard-Rock almost impossible to hear elsewhere, especially at this extraordinary level.
V is not only the fifth instalment in the history of Black Country Communion, with Kevin Shirley always present in the production seat, but it can be also taken as a symbol of victory by the whole collective for delivering an album that can be easily described as the highest artistic pinnacle of Black Country Communion to date. A contemporary Hard-Rock masterpiece.
V is out now and it can be purchased via Mascot Label Group / Provogue
