The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - 'Hot City'

I grabbed a copy of the 'new' album from The Sensational Alex Harvey Band after work today which was nicely displayed amid all the other new releases in the big HMV shop on Oxford Street (always a good sign). 'Hot City' is the lost album from 1974 that SAHB recorded with Shel Talmy before going into the studio a few months later to re-record it as 'The Impossible Dream'.

It's nicely packaged in a cardboard sleeve with a 20 page booklet inside and another cardboard sleeve with the actual CD. There are lots of nice black and white photos of Alex and the band that I've never seen before. The booklet is mainly made up of Chris Glen (bass) and Ted McKenna (drums) providing a commentary on each track, remembering how Alex used to do this and that and how the vocal is more up-front and how they forget that a song changed it's title - it's virtually a DVD commentary and fun to read.

The CD sounds like a demo for the album that was eventually released, or live versions of the songs. The vocal phrasing is different on some songs, the vocals mixed to the front, brass on some tracks that I wasn't expecting and Zal's guitar often mixed down and the power almost lost. It's an interesting historical document in that sense, showing the ancestry of some of the great SAHB songs.

The only song that I hadn't heard before is 'Ace In The Hole' which seems to have been treated a la 'Framed'. 'Man In The Jar' is much shorter than the normal version and the final track is 9 minutes long called 'Last Train' on this album but it's actually an early (and slightly longer) version of 'Anthem' with the drums and pipes mixed low.

If you're a SAHB fan you'll love this new record. I prefer the 'The Impossible Dream' versions of the songs but, then again, I would, since I've been listening to them for over 30 years. These alternative vesions of the songs bring some new light and shade to the songs that make them enjoyable. It's also great to hear Alex afresh, different phrasing to some of the songs but still powerful and passionate. And the band is, of course, Sensational.