Album Review of Collateral ReWired

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An excellent lockdown Rock and Roll album with several guest artists

 

This review is based on a paid-for pre-order copy from the publisher.

Collateral ReWired is more than it seems to be. On the face of it, it is a remixed version of the band’s eponymous debut Album, which was published in 2020, with a (very good) new bonus track and a guest artist added on on each of tracks 1 to 6 and 8 & 9, there being two guest artists on track 7. Which sounds like “the best that could be done under pandemic lockdown rules when they couldn’t go on tour (as was planned) or meet and work together closely enough to produce a new album of completely original material.” In actual fact it is more than the sum of these parts (and Collateral now has five members rather than being a four-man band) so it is better to see it as something good that we wouldn’t have heard if the pandemic had not intervened.

The proliferation of guest artists means that there’s a LOT of talent on this album and I like it better than the first. Dedicated fans will probably spend time listening to both albums back to back and pondering the differences, but new listeners who like their rock and roll to sound like rock and roll would do best to start here.

Published in the UK, October 2022 by Big Shot Management.

Review of Collateral’s Eponymous Debut Album

Collateral is a fusion of subtly-different Rock genres, rather than a fusion of Rock with anything that isn’t Rock. This at a time when many in the music industry are busy trying to promote other things. Quite uncowelled, the lads have decided to give the Rock-loving public what they want rather than what the hidden hand of market manipulation thinks they should have and I can see this being very successful.

Most of the tracks are new, but “Midnight Queen” is included, having been previously internationally successful as a single and I think it’s likely to not only remain a favourite with the band’s existing fans, but go on to make new fans as this album succeeds.

The new tracks deserve more than one hearing before you make up your mind about them: give that mind of yours a chance to cue into what’s actually going on and you’ll like them too! A good album from a band that are determined to make their own luck.

It is available from the official website, many online retailers and hopefully the surviving High Street ones as well.