Arts & Culture
The Gig Monkey Review - Hip Route

By Gig Monkey

Hip Route – Shout Out (single)

I wouldn’t normally review a single track but it is not often a local band hooks up with a bona-fide rock legend so I couldn’t ignore this. What also helped is an offering from the frankly superb Hip Route. The big story here then is that somehow a band from Swindon have persuaded Reef frontman Gary Stringer to share lead vocal duties. To be honest, I’m not bothered how this has come about, they could have kidnapped his granny for all I care, all I am interested in doing is listening to the result, because it sounds incredible!

Hip Route’s laid back, swaggering slide guitar blues-funk is tailor made for a singer like Stringer, his outrageous gravelly voice is the perfect complement to the gutsy music. The band’s own singer, Jim Blair, is himself possessed of a great, raspy growl of a voice and the two together are a perfect match. That is, right up to the point Stringer lets go and really pushes it, howling into the mic like a man possessed, that iconic rumbling snarl so familiar and still so exciting. The net result is instant goose bumps and a swift response from Blair, as he shows his guitar skills off in reply via a blistering guitar solo. Honours even then… But it is not all about the star turn or the extraordinary level of musicianship. No, this is a well-judged and perfectly balanced rock ‘n’ roll record – well written, authentic sounding, laden with hooks and melody and a stirring call to arms for the generations that should have us all springing to some sort of action in our lives, no matter how feeble.