Joe Bonamassa - Time Clocks.

Joe Bonamassa
Time Clocks

(Provogue)

9.5/10

By Paul Davies

Once in a while, an artist who possesses an impeccable back catalogue of recordings produces an album that consummately collects all their previous mastery and tops everything that they’ve done before. Joe Bonamassa’s Time Clocks is such a rarity. Just when you think he’s already surmounted an artistic Everest, Joe shoots for the moon and beyond. This album’s contents contain more twists and turns of stylings than a heavily plotted novel of historic importance Nuanced and multi-layered, Bonamassa has constructed a cathedral of sound from the vigorous musical expanse of early album single Notches on which he sings with raw conviction as he does throughout this bar-raising recording. His impassioned delivery and groove-some riffing on The Heart That Never Waits strongly reinforces the emotional elements at play.

Teeming with sinuous playing and crafty technique the title song sees Joe punching into a variety of stylings with a dash of bluegrass picking rising to a dramatic, anthemic power ballad chorus. It’s an album of killers executed by top-notch musicianship of rangy depth. Songs like Questions And Answers stop you dead in your tracks with its startling heavy delivery then the melodramatic blues ballad Mind’s Eye silkily soothes and grooves the senses amounting to a finely balanced career-best recording. The eastern influences on Curtain Call expand on the diversity of styles and canny arrangements with Joe aligning his notable notation with keyboard strings to monumental effect. Folk and blues-rock magnificently collide on The Loyal Kind with a stirring chorus and searing lead guitar. The shuffling feel-good rhythm to Hanging On A Loser with nifty bottleneck musings slides majestically into the melodious slinky closer Known Unknowns. It’s a song title that begs the question: how will Bonamassa better this?