Here is the new Dave Hole album – “Rough Diamond”. Following on from his very successful live release (“The Live One” 2003) this is Dave’s first studio album in 6 years. Featuring 11 powerful new recordings, “Rough Diamond” is bound to hit home with Hole’s eager fans worldwide. It presents a satisfying blend of fresh Hole originals with arrangements of songs from other composers that Dave has long aspired to record. In each case his inimitable soaring slide guitar style is well to the fore but the authoritative treatments here reveal a fresh artistic maturity and confi dence. As a result, many who may have felt that previous Hole albums were targeted mainly to blues guitar lovers will find this collection surprisingly “listenable”.
From the slow burning Yours For A Song to the white hot intensity of White Trash Girl, Hole’s guitar is as astounding as ever and yet at no stage does it threaten to overwhelm – always serving to enhance the song itself. Not to say that there aren’t some guitar pyrotechnics here. There are times when that is exactly what is called for and Dave steps up to deliver the intensity and excitement for which he is justly renowned.
There’s plenty of rollicking blues with Can’t Stop Loving You, King Bee and Robert Johnson’s Rambling On My Mind, as well as a heart-stopping slow blues in the form of Elmore James’ Something Inside Of Me. Perhaps most surprising is a cruising rendition of the standard Since I Met You Baby. Throughout these performances, Dave gets powerful support from his talented side-men: Roy Daniel on bass, Ric Eastman on drums and Bob Patient on keyboards.