The Reveal
Sabbath + RHCP + Rush = The Reveal & “The War” EP
There’s a reason they call it a “power trio.” Everyone must be on point, at all times. You can’t hide behind anyone else. If one part is missing, the whole thing falls apart. When it’s wrong, it’s awful. When it’s right, it’s amazing. There’s no middle ground. The songs of “The Reveal” reveal that they revel in the power trio format – this band is stunning.
In 2020, they released a full-length record of 11 songs entitled “Do You Know?”. Throughout the project you hear solid, riff-based tunes with nice syncopation and some percussion elements that remind you of RHCP and Rush. “The War,” “Pieces” and “Help This Man” also bring up images of Primus and Alice in Chains. But then there’s songs like “Brookshire” and “$3 Blues” which remind us more of the Stray Cats and George Thorogood. “Work” reminds us of English ska. The bass lines in “Tick Tock” remind us of the late, great, Bobby Sheehan from Blues Traveler, but with fuzz. “She’s Bad” is a great jam, where a clean guitar slithers over a fuzzy bass line and kick drive that smooth it out beautifully. It caps off with “Lost At Sea,” a lonely vibed groove that is very White Stripes meets RHCP with a smooth lyrical flow over top – but then there’s a tempo change that leads you to a darker, heavier, Sabbath vibe. “Do You Know” is a very broad project. Most bands couldn’t do something like this, but The Reveal can. The 37 minutes you’ll spend listening to this record will take you on a ride that’s similar to the records of the 70’s when it was more about the art that a band can create, than the songs that a label tells the artist they should record.
This year, they’ve released a 4 song EP, “The War EP,” with covers of songs by Kanye, Black Sabbath, The White Stripes, and one new original, “Castle on The Hill.” If you didn’t know the first record (see first paragraph) you’d think they were nuts to cover Kanye, Black Sabbath and the White Stripes, but they can, and they do so in an authentic fashion. It would be amazing to sit in a room with younger music fans and see how long it would take them to pick up on the fact that three of these fours songs are covers, or if they would even notice. Their version of “New Slaves” is heavier musically than the original. “Seven Nation Army” has a softer and funkier feel than the original – a little tamer in terms of its edge – but the arrangement is beautiful, and the up-tempo ska feel they throw in is perfect. “War Pigs” is probably my favorite – it’s a cleaner version of the original, with a Les Claypool vibe. “Castle on the Hill” is a sweeping original that perfectly ties in the covers of this project, as well as the 11 songs they created for their debut. It’s melodic, moody, funky and bit 1970’s space rock. Clearly this is a band that can’t be placed in a single genre – they’ve got that much to offer.
They routinely play around Nashville. While that might come as a surprise to you, stylistically, it shouldn’t. Yes, Broadway is full of country bars, rock bars, cover bars and bar owners who’ll tell you what you can and can’t play, but there’s also a host of venues around town that thrive with bands like this because they can play anything. We look forward to seeing them around town, and hearing what they’ll come up with next.