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Diesel Park West Left Hand Band - The Very Best Of CDCHRM 105 |
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Q magazine review by David Cavanagh - May, 1997
In 1989 a lot of people became tremendously excited by an album called Shakespeare
Alabama. The debut lp from agroup of Leicester-based Moby Grape fans who'd never see
29 again, it was a carnival of slithery 12-string guitars, four part harmonies and John Butlers
whacking great choruses. Diesel Park West, need one recapitulate, somehow never convinced
the majority of the glory of their coming. Talk of U.S. success proved fanciful; by the 1992 release
of their official second album, Decency, (it was preceded by a pretty good Hatful Of Hollow
affair called Flipped),The Diesels twangy passion was as popular as a four pound note. They
switched labels twice in the nineties, putting out Diesel Park West Vs. The Corporate Waltz
and FreaGene - neither is represented on this Food Records era compilation - before disbanding
in 1995. But although they never had a top 40 hit (All The Myths On Sunday, the blissful
anti-Tory lament that begins this 16 song collection, reached 66 in 1989), time has been
gracious to their music. Few groups since have shown such an orchestral attitude towards
harmony vocals and even fewer guitarists have bent their strings as imperiously as Rick Willson.
As these songs will prove, those who held them in high esteem were not wrong.
**** (4 star rating)
Diesel Park West
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