Pebbleman: Call of Fate Review
Pebbleman returns with Call of Fate, which is the fourth album by the South African band. Pebbleman is really the brainchild of guitarist Richard Pryor who is one of the few South African players with an endorsement from Fender. Kevin Gibson and Rob Stemett are still holding down the drums and bass respectively while Jesse Jordan growls and wails over the top of it all.
Pryor grew up listening to bands like Deep Purple. Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath, which you can clearly hear in the heavy hard rock edge of this album. He no doubt has the rock guitar chops to back everything up. However, don’t think that this is just a hard rock fret board arpeggio exercise. He lists SRV, Gary Moore and Joe Bonamassa as some of his influences and has spent years playing and still does with the band Boulevard Blues which is straight up blues rock.
As the first track says this album is literally “Loaded” with rocking tracks including “Energy,” “Live or Die,” and “Deadman’s Eyes.” It storms out of the gate and never lets off the gas until things slow down slightly at the end with the guitar driven instrumental “Band New Day.” There is plenty of blues in there, too, with tracks like “Count On You,” “I’ve Got a Girl,” and “Baby Calls My Name.” Of particular note though is an outstanding cover of Philip Sayce’s “Love is a Powerful Thing.”
This is a full throttle old school rock ride with a nitrous shot of metal and some blues guitar screaming at the limits of traction the whole way to the end of the strip. The old school ’70s rock bands like Whitesnake and Led Zeppelin had deep roots in the blues and were really modern interpretations or you could say they were even an evolution of the blues for their time. If you are a fan of the classic rock bands that had a great guitar player with a solid rhythm section and a powerful vocalists then you will like this album.
The Review: 7.5/10
Can’t Miss Tracks
– Loaded
– Love is a Powerful Thing
– Deadman’s Eyes
– I’ve Got a Girl
The Big Hit
– Loaded
Review by Kevin O’Rourke