Whatever way you look at it, Ginger Wildheart is a bonafide legend in the rock music industry. Since leaving the Quireboys and forming The Wildhearts back in 1989, the South Shields native has released a seemingly endless stream of records either with the now veteran band,  as a solo artist, or most recently with new project Hey! Hello!. This week has seen a new instalment to his saga of solo albums, with ‘Albion’, the latest offering from a man responsible for twenty-five years of, as The Wildhearts best put it, “riff after motherfucking riff”.

‘Albion’, then, starts off exactly how you’d expect from an artist who only seems to get better with age. ‘Drive’ kicks off the journey with nothing too challenging, but for a musician whose back catalogue of tracks is by now well into triple figures, the album is barely getting started. The closing stages of the track provide a thunderous collision of drums and guitar, before the final reprise of an irresistible chorus sees out the opening effort in a riotous fashion. The track ends so quickly that it’s easy to be left wondering what happened. Is that the final note, or the ringing in your shell-shocked ears?

There’s little time to ponder such questions, as ‘Cambria’ roars into life with a piledriving fury. Did you wonder why there’s a lion on the album cover? Yeah, it’s because of tracks like this. The verses seem like they’ve come barrelling out of a totally different dimension  to the track’s soaring chorus, but the entire ensemble comes together to sound simply marvellous. Again, the outro is one hand-crafted with the sole intention to get people moving, and it’s hard to see there being any difficulty in it achieving its goal. The lyrics of ‘Grow A Pair’ could certainly pass for inspiring; the assurance that “you don’t have to be a dickhead all your life” does not perhaps make the same impression as Devin Townsend’s ‘Grace’, for example, but Ginger’s willingness to have a bit of fun with his music certainly shines through just as brightly as that of his Canadian contemporary. From ‘Burn This City Down’ through ‘The Order Of The Dog’ and into ‘Body Parts’, Ginger continues his drive to fire off a real album of the year candidate. ‘The Order Of The Dog’ is DT meets DTP, a many-headed beast of a track and a real highlight midway through the record.

‘The Beat Goes On (Caledonia)’ would begin the steady build to ‘Albion’’s finale, if only you weren’t enjoying the album far too much to even begin considering the end of the near hour-long LP. It’s another piece that’s been tinkered with in post-production, but it’s all in the name of making you want to smile just as much as it makes you want to use your table as a trampoline. ‘After All You Said About Cowboys’ is the closest thing to a ballad you’ll be getting out of Ginger any time soon, but luckily he’s one of those musicians who can step slightly out of his comfort zone and make the end result sound like it’s his life’s work. ‘Creepers’ brings the towering energy of ‘Albion’ skyrocketing back, and the record’s penultimate track is a real limb-mover. Seriously, if this can’t get you moving, nothing will. Except, perhaps, the album closer. ‘Albion’ is seen out by its title track, bringing together all of Ginger’s flavours and styles in a ten-minute epic. The epitome of a grand finale, ‘Albion’’s curtain call is a progressive firestorm of sound to close out what will – there is no denying – dominate album of the year lists in December.

There aren’t many musicians left that are quite like Ginger Wildheart, which might be a good thing with all things considered. This world isn’t big enough for more than a couple, a masterclass of musical energy that one doesn’t simply “stop”. Ginger’s already booked his place on the Mount Rushmore of rock music, everything else is simply a gift to a fanbase that has already enjoyed decades of musical magic. Here’s to decades more.

5/5

‘Albion’ by Ginger is out now on Round Records.

Ginger links: Website|Facebook|Twitter

Words by Antony Lusmore (@Metacosmica)