Review: 'Dark Hour' Billy Walton Band

Billy Walton Band

By Mike O’Cull

Blues/rock outfit the Billy Walton Band comes out blazing on its new album Dark Hour. Out on the Harmonized Records imprint, the set was engineered by the Grammy-nominated Jim Salamone (Teddy Pendergrass) at Cambridge Sound Studios in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and captures guitarist/vocalist Billy and his band (bassist William Paris, saxophone player Tom Petraccaro, trumpeter Bruce Krywinski Jr., Hammond organist Eric Safka, and drummer Francis Valentino) at the top of their game. Dark Hour follows the band’s Soul of a Man release in 2017.

The tone of the record was shaped by witnessing the hard times people are living though and reflects the difficulties of surviving each day. “When I was writing the songs for Dark Hour, I decided to take a different approach,” says Walton, “I would take elements of friends’ failed relationships and the darkness that follows. The album allowed me to take on the persona of the characters of the songs. The heartbroken and the heartbreakers, the hopeless and the hopeful, the angry and the forgiving. The record takes you on a ride and hopefully brings clarity to the ones living in that ‘dark hour.’”

Billy Walton is a fine guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter who keeps busy making a big mark on the blues/rock scene. He follows in the traditions of Hendrix, Clapton, Page, and Beck but folds in equal measures of his own modern style and swag. He starts the album with the chest-thumping rocker “Think Of Me,” a tight mid-speed track that spotlights his wah-soaked guitar work and expressive lead vocals. “Long Slow Descent” comes next and rocks with an end-of-the-world urgency. Walton’s lyrics are more than a little apocalyptic and he delivers them with the intensity they demand. He also drops a short, ripping guitar break that drives the track even harder.

“You Don’t Need Me” is an edgy, desperate song about blackouts and betrayals that shifts from a tense verse to a drop-tuned hook before finally launching into a long, spacious guitar solo in the Floydian mode. It’s one of the best cuts on Dark Hour and displays all of Walton’s skills as well as his level of creativity. He truly takes listeners into the darkness here and makes them feel what it’s like to be in that sort of depressed headspace. Walton shifts gears wholesale on the tender ballad “Long Way Down.” The song is a beautiful piece of soul poetry that features the horn players and lets us hear the smoother side of Billy’s voice. His guitar solo is sweetly melodic and powerful and his roughed-up tone adds some bite to the moment.

“Confusion” steers into the heavy soul/funk of the 1970s and packs a righteous punch fans won’t soon forget. The entire band grooves hard without ever hitting the boil-over point and the pocket they create is magically delicious. The track also has a taste of psychedelia around the edges that makes it even cooler.

Deep cuts not to be missed include the aptly-named “Funky Fever,” which again dips into the classic funk/soul bag, and Walton’s cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez The Killer.” The Young track is Walton’s epic of the set and Walton uses his full guitar and vocal pallet to bring us this tale of slaughter and conquest. His depth of phrasing and judicious use of high-speed chops raise the emotion of the song to mighty heights and complete its cinematic mood. The Billy Walton Band brings us to many peaks and into many valleys on Dark Hour and have created one of the most musically and conceptually fulfilling records you’ll encounter this year. Settle in and let this one take you someplace new.