Written by: Nick Ashton
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Troy Redfern
Invocation
17th May 2024
Slide guitar maestro Troy Redfern returns with a collection of 11 songs on his latest album Invocation. While broadly sticking to familiar blues-rock tropes, there is enough variety spanning a range of tempos and emotions to capture and hold your attention. This is certainly an album that rewards repeated listens, as the songs slowly reveal their full potential and work their way into your subconscious.
The most obvious tracks calling for your immediate attention are Getaway, Van Helsing and Voodoo Priestess which are high energy rockers. The former in particular has a down and dirty riff which hits the spot, whereas Van Helsing has the sort of earworm hook that you can’t shake off. These are songs that are crying out to be played live, and hopefully will feature in Troy’s forthcoming headline tour in June.
The first single to be lifted from the album, way back in January 2023, was The Fever which has attitude and confidence in its DNA. If you are new to the joys of the slide guitar, there is no better place to start than this song which appropriately enough burns with a sensual heat at its heart and features a dirty, slinky solo that oozes sleaze. All Night Long is similarly high paced, with another upbeat riff at its core that puts a swing in your hips and a smile on your face. Picture yourself back in small town 1950s America: girls in bobby socks, bad boys with slicked back quiffs and an illegal hot rod race taking place outside the diner. Got it? Well, All Night Long is the song playing on the jukebox as the cops arrive to break up the party.
Invocation has a lot to offer fans of blues-rock slide guitar.
Elsewhere, the mood changes and Troy explores a different palette. The Calling has a filmic quality: you can imagine the song playing out over the credits of the next Bond film after the bad guys have been defeated and the world has been brought back from the brink of disaster. There is a dreamy, expansive quality to the melody which is punctuated by an understated guitar solo with some almost Van Halen-esque tapping before we return to the empty spaces at the heart of the song. While we’re talking about movie themes, Native is another song that would not feel out of place in a film soundtrack, albeit a Western in this case. The slide guitar evokes a feeling of the old West when gunslingers ruled the roost and the only thing that mattered was the speed of your draw. Troy has the swagger and the confidence to stare down the baddest of bad guys as he wrings out a blistering solo before slowly disappearing into a shimmering heat haze.
As the album draws to a close the mood and pace changes down a couple of gears. Blind Me is a slow and introspective piece whereas Take Me High and The Last Stand are mid-paced numbers that contrast with the high energy approach taken earlier in the collection. As a result, the album tends to fade out rather than ending with a bang, which is a pity as there is real depth and strength in the preceding material. Notwithstanding this quibble, Invocation has a lot to offer fans of blues-rock slide guitar.
Band Members
Troy Redfern – Vocals and Guitar
Dave Marks – Bass, Keys and Percussion
Paul Stewart – Drums
Track Listing
- The Strange
- Getaway
- Van Helsing
- The Calling
- Native
- The Fever
- All Night Long
- Blind Me
- Voodoo Priestess
- Take Me High
- The Last Stand