Review – Phil Davidson ‘Great Unknown’
About all I could glean information-wise from the
cover of this CD was that Phil Davidson is a
resident of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. That is, at the time of writing
this part of the review, all I can fault the record for: Phil’s “Great Unknown” album
is exceptional guitar-oriented pop music that should garner some attention
should it land in the right places.
With a sound that combines Bryan
Adams, Huey
Lewis, Chris
Isaak, Richard
Clapton, “Rumors”-era Fleetwood
Mac, The Commitments, and any Garth
Porter produced album, Phil has managed to capture many aspects of his life –
love or a woman, loss of a love, love of a child, love of a deity, travel,
pain… pretty much the whole gamut of human emotion… And the instrumentation
would befit a ‘professional’ release by a major label – mandolin/fiddle,
strings (sounding quite real for a synth in some places during the title
track), rock- and acoustic-guitar as suits the track; this is quite a good
release from one I will admit I have not heard of prior to this album.
Stand-out tracks include the openers Something Special
and Love Like
a River, as well as Maria, Down Here Tonight,
Change in the
Weather, Waiting For Love, and the country feel of Love Will Keep Us Alive and Madison.
Phil
Davidson “Great Unknown”
independent album – 17 tracks of all sorts of pop music that makes for some
essential listening: my best advice would be to write to Jo
Bryson for more information on this artist.
