BROKEN WITT REBELS - Caddoan

'OK Hotel’ is the latest studio album from Broken Witt Rebels, the Birmingham quartet whose music walks the line between contemporary sonics and roots rock passion – a heady blend of blues, soul, wailing rock guitar and deeply heartfelt vocals. Since coming together in 2015, the musicians – Danny Core (vocals), James Tranter (guitar), Luke Davis (bass) and James Dudley (drums) – have seen their collective star on the rise, giving up day jobs, working independently across a series of acclaimed EPs, and playing shows in the US and Europe, as well as headlining tours and making major festival appearances at home. In November 2017, they issued their debut self-titled album – a collection of tracks combining remastered EP material with four new recordings, underlining their reputation as one of Britain's finest emerging guitar outfits. The latest recordings pointed the way forward, but the players were determined to take their sound to a significantly higher level, weaving the music that inspired them – in Core’s case, iconic recordings from Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and Muddy Waters – into their own story, keeping weight of feeling and commercial appeal well to the fore. The result is ‘OK Hotel’. Produced by The Wind and The Wave’s Dwight Baker in Austin, Texas, these 13 new songs have the fresh feel of a band looking to seriously move the needle; all of the personal, emotive aspects of the BWRs sound remain intact, but now everything is honed to a sharper point, the vision bigger and broader, the production giving full rein to the commercial ambition of the songs. From fired-up modern rocker ‘Money’ through the anthemic, uplifting strains of ‘Running With The Wolves’ and onto the spine-tingling ‘Birmingham’ (yes, finally a song about the Birmingham not in Alabama!), this is a record that grabs the lapels and simply refuses to let go.