South African rocker Ross Harding returns with his latest offering “Chapter II’ released Nov 4th, a five-track EP drenched in quality.
Harding has been making waves on the S.A. music scene for years now and as with many things in life, myself included, just gets better with age. The EP showcases his maturity as an artist and his ability to translate those dark, gnarly musical thoughts into an end product well deserving of your attention and hard-earned cash.
Harding has a real quality to his vocals which along with deep emotive songwriting allows you to engage with the EP from the off. Harding a great admirer of some of the best vocalists in the business, the late great Chris Cornell and the stellar Myles Kennedy translates their influences and qualities to his own musical style, with gritty and hard-hitting tracks like the opener ‘Black Sun Blues’ with its hefty introduction to the more subtle ‘Blood & Bone’s which carries on with a melodic structure that feels familiar yet individual enough so that it feels like that badly needed warm blanket on a cold Irish winter night.
‘Love & Time’ continues the theme with an anthemic quality that you could easily imagine ringing around an arena, fans’ arms In the air warbling along to its highly addictive chorus, whilst ‘Fire Away’ grabs you by the scruff of the collar once again to remind you of that hefty quality hidden within Ross’s melodic backbone.
After all that the EP wraps up with the more sedate ‘Let It Go’ a sultry number which wraps up a killer collection of songs that soars way above the expectation.
Chapter II lands this Friday via Mongrel Records and absolutely deserves your attention, artists like Harding are grafting, keeping their heads down making things happen bit by bit and the support of the local and global community is more important than ever after the last few years.
Take the time to give it a spin, you’ll not be disappointed.
Track Listing & Ross Harding Commentary
1. Black Sun Blues
“A darker, more Rock ‘n’ Roll take on the traditional 12 Bar Blues. It’s a song about paradox – light and dark, good and evil, order and chaos, constantly at war with each other to find balance.”
2. Blood & Bones
“The attempt to transcend our physical self, shed our “blood and bones’’ becoming something greater – into the realm of spirit and the divine.”
3. Love & Time
“Inspired by overarching themes of Love & Time.”
4. Fire Away
“Diving into chaos headfirst in order to come out the other side as changed for the greater good.”
5. Let It Go II (Return)
“A kind of melancholy slow blues song. This is actually my second time recording this tune. Lyrically inspired by Freud and Jung, with themes of the shadow self, alchemy and the doomed search for immortality, finally reaching acceptance of one’s mortality.”
Check out our chat with Ross earlier this year: