Danish retro-rockers Highway Child have been personal favorites since I first saw them live years back, exciting me with their awesome live performance and expert take on the sounds of the 1960s and 1970s. Now they are ready with their eponymous third album in four years, and it’s another delightful round of rock tipping hats to the greats of the past.

Who are they?
Patrick Heinsøe (vocal), Paw Eriksen (guitar), Christian Norup (bas), Andreas Henriksen (drums) and producer Per Sunding (Bob Hund, The Cardigans, Sort Sol etc).

How’s the album?
One thing that impresses me with Highway Child is their ability to make the musical heritage their own instead of just robbing the historical cradle. Another is how they’ve effortlessly evolved in both sound and expression over their now three albums without losing their trademark rocking selves. Debut ‘On The Old Kings Road’ was dump-truck heavy, classic hard rock paying homage to the likes of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, while 1960s psychedelia and acts like The Who, Cream, The Kinks and The Beatles played leading roles on their excellent sophomore effort ‘Sanctuary Come’. This eponymous third sits nicely in between the two, and sees them add female backing vocals to great effect, toy with percussion and beats (most obvious in the intricate, semi-industrial Tom Waits-ish beat of ‘Play For Soul’), and throw a bit of delta blues sex and hurt in the soulful mix. Really, really good stuff…

Check them out if you like:
Chucking down Fernet Branca to trucking riffs and spaced out jams. In this case a HC gig wouldn’t be the worst place to do so, because – as said above – these guys are an amazing live act.

More Highway Child:
On MySpace
On Facebook
On www

Genre: Rock
Who: Highway Child
Album: Highway Child
Label: Slow Shark Records/VME
Year: 2011
Country: Denmark
Language: English
DOWNLOAD VIA

Recommended tracks:
Something New To Get Fooled By – Real Love – Play For Soul – Love Love Love (I’m Gonna Take It Out On You) – Love And Let Die