Stephen I'm amazed with a bunch of extremely high ratings for this one because my ears didn't tell me the same. I came as a casual classic rock fan but aside from the fact that this is indeed a Zeppelin/Purple injected rock with a band of seasoned veterans, Hughes and Bonham to name a few, the songs just don't work fine for me.

I hardly find any memorable tracks at all, in fact, good track is a scarcity here. I like 'I Can See Your Spirit', the riffs are nice, the chorus is good, but even this song that I considered the best here is probably an average one. 'The Outsider' has a good guitar/keyboard duel just like in the old Purple days, 'The Battle For Hadrian's Wall' reminds me to Zeppelin a lot, while 'Save Me' is slow and doomy, with a little Middle-eastern flair, but sadly those three still can't please my appetite.

Sadly, 'Man In The Middle', 'Smokestack Woman', 'Crossfire', and 'Cold' are terribly disposable fillers for me. 'Faithless' might be a good indication to be a radio track but still not sure whether it can prevail in the first week. This is one of the few albums that was praised highly all over the world but didn't work out for me.

poslednijat_colobar An ultimate hard/blues rock classic

The second Black Country Communion album, called just 2 is precise hard/blues rock masterpiece with immediate effect among the listeners. All the things I've been talking about the debut album are valid here in 2 again, but there are another unique steps forward to this album's greatness.

The first aspect is the cohesion of the band members. All these great musicians are working in perfect harmony on 2 and it's obviously seen. 2 is magical album with lots of energy and intensity. The melancholy is main feeling in some ballads and plays an opposite role to solid hard rock performances.

The construction of 2, musicianship, songwriting, producton and routine are all of highest standard and revealed the exactitude of this cult album.

poslednijat_colobar Staggering classic/hard/blues rock experience into the 10s.

When I heard about the creation of this band, I have been very enthusiastic about that. All these musicians (Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian) are established leading players in contemporary rock music and now we have the chance to hear what they to say as a supergroup.

...and the result is astonishing blues/hard rock album, constructed in all the rules of the 70s hard rock music without any noticeable defects and flaws recommended for all rock fans...

As usual, I won't review this debut album called Black Country song by song. It's a homogeneous piece of art and carries an united spirit of expressivness. The songwriting is a masterclass with genuine and unostentatious ideas, built in highly mature conception. The musicianship is just a perfect enjoyment. "The voice of rock" as we all know Glenn Hughes is again and again in his well-known faultless form of playing bass and singing. His genius and capability of remodeling his voice helps him to sing in 4-5 different manners of timbre. To Joe Bonamassa's account could be recorded his sateen voice (in four songs) and technical guitar solos , alternated with low-tunes keyboard solos of Derek Sherinian. Jason Bonham plays in highly intensive and dynamic way, which tempted lots.

Black Country is another evidence, that most of the magnificent musicians need to play with other magnificent musicians in a band in order to fulfill thier own potential. As we saw most of all solo albums with session musicians are just a padding in comparison with albums like Black Country.

The last thing I shall notice is the similarity of the band with other hard rock bands. It's like facilitation of the listeners. The most similar band to Black Country Communion indisputably for me is Led Zeppelin. Afterthat it comes Deep Purple. So attention for the fanbase of both fore-mentioned bands!

Kingcrimsonprog Black Country Communion is a supergroup who play classic rock music which features Glen Hughes, Jason Bonham, Joe Bonamassa and Derek Sherinian all of whom are gifted musicians and have been involved with high quality, respectable music separately and work really well together within the group.

Their self-titled debut album was released in 2010 and is far from a flimsy and insubstantial collaboration between friends, but is an extremely well put together, lengthy and memorable album that both stands up musically on its own merits and flows well from beginning to end.

In addition to featuring a strong line-up and being in a genre which I enjoy, I think the production job on the record is superb, and everything sounds really great, especially Jason Bonham’s toms.

I had gotten into the band on the release of their second album and a lot of the reviews at the time stated how much better it was to their debut, naturally I assumed the debut would be a little poor but luckily this assumption turned out to be completely wrong.

While still feeling cohesive and complete, the album is far from repetitive and covers a variety of musical ground. Vocals for example, are primarily handled by the very talented Glen Hughes who adds some soul influences to the rock formula but then Joe Bonamassa also sings on four of the songs bringing more of his blues based style into the overall sound.

Tracks such as the Title Track, ‘Beggarman’ and ‘Sista Jane’ are straight up hard and heavy rock numbers, ‘Down Again’ mixes in a little of the Funk feelings of Hughes era Deep Purple and both ’Too Late For The Sun’ and ‘Medusa’ are longer and slower tracks with more keys and atmosphere.

Overall, Black Country Communion are a great band and this debut album is a strong effort that is well produced, musically interesting and stylistically excellent.

Kingcrimsonprog Black Country Communion's second studio album, simply entitled `2,' is a very strong album from a band that are getting better and more confident, gelling together as a group well and hammering home their sound.

At first I was skeptical of how good the album could be, as when big names collaborate the results aren't always as good as the sum of their parts and often when any band constantly get described as sounding like bands they have some vague connection with, they usually fail to measure up.

The album features all the blazing keyboard solos and big, roomy drum sounds you'd expect from a band who gladly state their fondness for Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin in their linear notes. The overall style that the band were aiming for has been achieved perfectly, but that isn't enough if the songwriting isn't up to standard.

Thankfully, Black Country Communion have delivered in this department with `2.' The album starts very strong, and opens up with the hard rocking `The Outsider,' and follows up with the heavy yet groove laden single `Man In The Middle,' which serves as just about as strong a one-two opening punch as any fan could hope for.

The album thankfully concentrates on straight up rock, but also mixes a few variations into the formula, a little folky section on one track, a blues track and a few more dynamic tracks with eastern influences keep things interesting.

All the musicians are on top form, Glen Hughes sings with gusto and plays just as well, Jason Bonham nails the drumming in both power and feel and Joe Bonamassa's excellent playing fits into the band more naturally than on the band's debut. A special mention is deserved for Derek Sherinian, who absolutely shines on this record.

With this second album, Black Country Communion fulfill their potential and deliver a very enjoyable slab of driving classic rock music, proving to be more than just a cash in on nostalgia, but a strong musical force to be genuinely appreciated.

Kingcrimsonprog Black Country Communion released their first live outing, Live Over Europe in late 2011 just a few short months after their second studio album ‘2’ and only about a year after their self-titled debut.

The band, which is something of a super group featuring the talented Joe Bonamassa, Glen Hughes, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinham. Between them they’ve worked in all sorts of interesting and important bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin (sort of), Jimmy Page’s solo works, Dream Theater and lots of other solo and guest work.

There are some good things going for Live Over Europe. The set-list for example is pretty fabulous, featuring fifteen live original songs by the band (with another studio version in the credits, inexplicably listed on the back) as well as a modified Bonamassa solo track and one Deep Purple cover (‘Burn.’) This is a pretty impressive turn out considering the band only have twenty-three songs at the time it was recorded.

In terms of non-concert extras, the booklet has linear notes and there is a documentary bonus feature along with some photo galleries.

The biggest problem with this release however is the format; it is taken from different shows on different European dates, instead of just picking one to film and release in its entirety. Some of the shows are indoor, some are festivals and as such the sound quality and mixing from each is a little different, which can prevent it from flowing as well as a single show would.

The editing job isn’t exactly the best either, with the first song ‘Black Country’ especially suffering. The track is split up between the different concerts and stitched together, with little sections of documentary dialogue in there too. Luckily though, this is the only song to be spoiled in such a way and the rest of the release displays each song intact and complete from beginning to end at the one show, although sometimes the transition between shows will feature a few seconds of documentary footage.

If you can get by the format and forgive the editing (and the aspect ratio), this is still a good enough release that is fairly enjoyable. I have watched it a fair few times since it came out and do not regret buying it despite its flaws.

While quality isn’t consistent, some of the shows have very good sound and visuals. In each show, the band are always great performers and the songs themselves are very good so it really does still offer a lot of quality for fans, so long as they aren’t put off by the aforementioned format and editing.

Overall; Live Over Europe isn’t everything you could hope for in a Black Country Communion live release, so take that into consideration before picking up a copy, but at the same time it is a Black Country Communion live release, which should be enough for a lot of people. The wonderful playing and superb vocals from Joe and Glen really do make up for a heck of a lot and tracks like ‘The Battle For Hadrian’s Wall’ and ‘The Ballad Of John Henry’ are absolutely phenomenal live.