Wouldn’t you fancy the idea of traveling back in time with the push of a single button? Wouldn’t you dream to be in a specific time just to listen to the music you always loved when it was in the making? This would be an inhibition for many a-loyal classic rock fans over the years and even if it always looked as an impossibility, it might not be as unlikely now.

The Black Country Communion, that is Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian, dare you to push this button and they promise to take care of everything else. And what could everything else be? Well, everything else is  what really matters and not the button by itself. And it is this whole 70s ambience emitted by this new album by the only contemporary super group that has a reason to be called as such. The complete idea of classic rock as the greats taught us to listen to it is here. That is the sexy, harsh Led Zeppelin blues, the classicistic perfection of the Deep Purple, the stolid, psychedelic temperament of the Pink Floyd, the underground complexity of the Atomic Rooster, the melodic dash of the Who and the chaotic gravity of the Black Sabbath. At the same time, the guitar tradition of Jimi Hendrix, the monumental vagabondage of the Mountain and the primordial, cosmic and redemptive simplicity of the blues. Those are the elements out of both sides of the same ocean that compose, the same way as it happened thirty odd years ago, exactly the same thing that we came to know as classic Heavy Rock.

Nevertheless, all of the above would only be trivial if they were not crafted in a special way. The way that only true musicians, raised through such experiences and influences can conceive to create brand new, but oh-so-classic music. And it may be that the ever astonishing Glenn Hughes was a part of those influences, it may be that Jason Bonham, one of the most underrated (due to his legacy) contemporary drummers, has them printed deep in his DNA. It is Joe Bonamassa the man that could as well be another boring post-MTV generation representative, au contraire, he chose to bury deep in those influences since his early youth already, make them part of his contemporary blues tradition and re-visit them, by honoring them as they really are. Together with one of the most acclaimed keyboardists of the last twenty years to boost up and dress up the ambience, the music is soothingly inspired, triumphant and truly sweeping. It is exactly what we could refer to as a modern revival of the classic sound.

Staying afar from flamboyance, cheap, fake impressions and flat swaggering, this is a real super group, a true constellation, each star with its unique shine and its unique flare to the cosmic phenomenon that Black Country Communion is.

As of the time that these lines are being written, the album is yet to be released but I can’t help but being eager for a follow up...