I bought my copy of the latest Spin Doctors album, ‘If The River Was Whiskey’, at the O2 Academy gig in Islington on the 30^th of January, 2013; as far as I am aware, you can’t buy it in the UK yet, so it was well worth the fifteen smackers that I paid for it!

The gig playlist borrowed heavily from ‘A Pocket Full Of Kryptonite’, but it also introduced some tracks from the new album.

Simply put, ‘If The River Was Whiskey’ is a blues/rock album with a Spin Doctors twist!

1. Some Other Man Instead
2. If The River Was Whiskey
3. Sweetest Portion
4. Traction Blues
5. Scotch And Water Blues
6. About A Train
7. The Drop
8. Ben’s Looking Out The Window blues
9. So Bad
10. What My Love?

‘Some Other Man Instead’ is a relentless and catchy song which constitutes the perfect opening track!  I also really love the title track, If The River Was Whiskey; it just has a great feeling about it which reminds me of Canned Heat or Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac!  ‘

I think my favourite is ‘About A Train‘, Eric Shenkman kicks off with a grooving hick blues riff  before Aaron Comess comes in with STOMPING drums, Mark White’s gorgeous bass line will get you nodding your head like a readneck and singing along to Chris Barrons soulful preaching in no time!

Don’t let the pacey and dulcet tones during the bridge fool you, the song quickly jumps back into blues and leads up to a fantastic instrumental break which sounds like (yep, you guessed it!) a steam train!

This was mind blowing live and totally different from the original track on the ‘You’ve Got To Believe In Something’ album.  .

About a Train – Live at Leeds

“Traction Blues”, “The Drop” and “Ben’s Looking Out The Window Blues”  are other stand out tracks which reinforces the live feeling to the album; that said, it’s well produced and maintains the raw quality that makes The Spin Doctors such a good jamming band.

This album is excellent, I really can’t praise it enough.

If The River Was Whiskey = Just when I thought I had stopped buying music………..