THE MAGPIE SALUTE

High Water I PROVOGUE/MASCOT

Rich Robinson laid down a marker for The Magpie Salute with 2017’s mini-LP of covers and old Black Crowes tunes; a collection that suggested an organic, loose entity with bags of groove. The band’s debut proper made good on its promise, as Robinson and his trusted crew – former Crowes bandmates Marc Ford and Sven Pipien, plus keyboardist Matt Slocum, drummer Joe Magistro and singer John Hogg – cut a swathe through Southern blues, rootsy soul and crunching rock‘n’roll. The idea, as Robinson explained, was to create “something different and also a little familiar”. Diehard Crowes fans would have much to enjoy in the album’s big fists-inthe-air moments, particularly Send Me An Omen and Mary The Gypsy. But equally striking were the songs that wandered slightly off track, from the folksy jam of Hand In Hand to the low-down frontier ballad, Can You See. RH

Killer track: Send Me An Omen