Status Quo – 'Backbone' (Review)

Status Quo – 'Backbone'

(earMUSIC)

Release Date - Friday 6th September 2019

Earlier this year, (the mighty) Status Quo announced the release of ‘Backbone’, their first new studio album since 2016’s ‘Aquostic II: That's a Fact!’ and their 33rd studio album in their long career.  There’s no denying that ‘Backbone’ is an important release because it’s the first studio album from the group since the untimely death of rhythm guitarist Rick Parfitt in December 2016 and the first studio album to feature his successor, Richie Malone.

Recorded at Francis’ home studio in the late 2018 with some recordings conducted in early 2019, the album spans some eleven track s and comes in at around 40 minutes in length.  Two tracks,’ Cut Me Some Slack’ and ‘Liberty Lane’, have already made their debut in the Quo live set and they’ve received a mostly positive reaction from Quo’s army of fans whilst the title track itself was released with a promo video in early July, again to fairly positive reviews from fans and critics.

For the purposes of clarity, it should be pointed out that this is “Status Quo 2019” so don’t expect the driving hard rock rhythms that they made their name with in the Seventies and with driving force and sole founding member remaining in the line up, Francis Rossi, in his seventies himself this is a another more laid back offering.  Having said that, I’m not saying that there’s nothing to enjoy here because there are glimpses of  that solid twelve bar boogie the band are renowned for.    

A hidden gem for me was ‘I See You’re In Some Trouble’ which is a fun little track with a catchy chorus that motors along at a fair pace but then when you realise that it was written by Rossi and his old writing partner Bob Young, then it all makes sense!  It’s one of three songs here which are drawn from the classic partnership of Rossi/Young which also gifts us ‘I Wanna Run Away With You’ which is average fare however, I’d try and avoid that disappointing ‘Waiting For A Woman’ which shows that not everything the pair write is solid gold.

‘Backing Off’ (written by Rossi and long-time keyboard player Andrew Bown) is a mid-paced easy listening track that has an infectious chorus and a sharp guitar riff whilst ‘Better Take Care’ might be one of the slower paced numbers here but it throws out a strong guitar riff and a simple but solid drum beat courtesy of Leon Cave, making this another enjoyable listen.

Talking of Cave, he and Malone get a chance to flex their song-writing muscles with the former contributing ‘Falling Off The World’ and the latter penning ‘Get Out Of My Head’.  Both competently written tracks for sure, with ‘Falling Off The World’ a solid mid-paced track whilst ‘Get Out Of My Head’ is more of a guitar driven up-tempo foot tapper. 

As I said, this the 2019 line up of Quo and comparisons between this material and their extensive catalogue are bound to happen but this is a different line up and with all five members of the band contributing to the writing, the album is going to have a different feel to it.  Still, those fans who still pack the arenas every year will by and large be quite happy with how the album sounds.  For me it’s a solid effort with one or two tracks that fail to make the grade but otherwise, pretty enjoyable all in all.  

Rating: 7/10

‘Backbone’ is available to pre-order right now and will be released on the following formats:

1 CD Standard Jewelcase (11 songs)

1 CD Limited Digipak (including 2 bonus songs)

1 Gatefold Vinyl +Download Code (Vinyl: 11 songs /DWL Card: 13 songs)

Limited Edition Box Set (1CD Digipak, Live-Bonus CD recorded during Status’ Quo’s ‘The Last Night Of The Electrics’ tour, Status Quo Collector’s T-Shirt)

‘Backbone’ standard CD Track Listing:

Waiting For A Woman

Cut Me Some Slack

Liberty Lane

I See You're in Some Trouble

Backing Off

I Wanna Run Away With You

Backbone

Better Take Care

Falling Off The World

Get Out Of My Head

Running Out Of Time

Status Quo are:

Francis Rossi – Lead Guitar/Vocals

Andy Bown – Keyboards/Rhythm Guitar/Harmonica/Vocals

John "Rhino" Edwards – Bass Guitar/ Vocals

Leon Cave – Drums/Backing Vocals

Richie Malone – Rhythm Guitar/Backing Vocals