Black Honey
Written & Directed
Release Date: Mar 19, 2021
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Orchard
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Album Review: Written & Directed by Black Honey
Very Good, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Brighton's Black Honey return with their second album, Written and Directed, and not unlike a movie from frontwoman Izzy B. Phillips' hero Quentin Tarantino, it comes out with all guns blazing. The album barely pauses for breath as hooks and earworms detonate like hand grenades at a frenetic pace. The band--consisting of Phillips, guitarist Chris Ostler, bassist Tommy Taylor, and Alex Woodward, who joined the group after the departure of long time drummer Tom Dewhurst--have built up a cult following due to their incendiary live performances and have harnessed that energy and power on album two which expands their widescreen cocktail of pop-noir and fizzing hook-laden pop-rock to a whole new level.
Based on rating 3
Brighton alt-rock quartet Black Honey have spoken of their love of cinema, so titling their second album Written & Directed seems like an appropriate choice. The band's image, influenced by gritty spaghetti westerns and ostentatious 1950s iconography, conveys feisty sex appeal straight from a cult classic. Their self-titled debut album from 2018 gave us energetic numbers like Somebody Better, All My Pride and Hello Today, and these, it appears, provided a taste of things to come.
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