Joe Bonamassa is always a synonym of great quality music and even with this brand new album called Time clocks the blues-rock giant hits the score. Time clocks follows the beautiful Royal Tea, only released about one year ago (there is at least a positive aspect of the pandemic...) and which was my favourite of the past year.
Behind the mixer there is always Kevin Shirley, and there is a lot of talking about him (especially with the "new" Iron Maiden sound. Here's the review of Senjutsu, for example). Well, I have to say that the combo Joe Bonamassa - Kevin Shirley works really well!
The sound of Time clocks is very convincing as its predecessor and the songs have a great inspiration as well. 10 songs (well, 9, the first one is an intro) for 57 minutes of music, so really long songs here but, you know, when the songs are inspired I am not gonna complain about long songs (ehm, talking about Maiden...). A perfect example is the opener, Notches: 7 minutes of great sound and great inspiration. The song is definitely one of my favourites of the album. Do we want to talk about the title track and its magnificent chorus? Epic, with a great performance of Joe even behind the microphone.
Other good songs are The heart that never waits, the "angry" Questions and answers, a typical Bonamassa's like Mind's Eye, with another epic chorus and an epic guitar solo and the "oriental" and heavy rock Curtain call, with a great riff and a great arrangement.
If you like Joe Bonamassa you won't be surely disappointed by Time Clock, which will be for sure in a high position of my personal top 10 of this year. Great job, Joe!
Rating: 77/100
Top tracks: Notches, Time clocks, Mind's eye.