This is the brand-new album from multi-talented musician Gordon Banks. Be prepared to go on a journey as you listen to this album — it’s a journey I’m sure you’ll enjoy taking.
The album kicks off with the pacy “I’ll See You Again,” a guitar-heavy track which sets the scene and gives you an idea of what might be coming. I did say it was a journey, so the pace slows down a little with “You Make Me Smile,” a fabulous track in my opinion — beautiful lyrics as it bares its soul to everyone. It also has the ability to have you singing along, even on first or second listen; once you have the song in your head, it’s there. We are then told that “Thunder’s Coming” — this is a great track that has a fantastic twist at the end which I won’t spoil, but it did make me smile.
Track 4 is a song called “Life Changes,” which gives us a possible look into Gordon’s life, present and past, good and bad, happy and sad — a beautiful song indeed. Then we “Say Hi To Billy,” which is a nod to an American Legend. I again won’t spoil it, but if you do your homework you’ll be able to work out who “Billy” is — brilliantly haunting feel to this song, love the wailing guitars and saloon-style piano. Our journey continues with “Cryin’ Over You,” a very melancholic song, and we reflect on relationships we have all had at one time and reminisce about hurt and upset we have all felt in our lives.
“I Promise To Promise” is the next song on our journey. It’s something we have all done in our lives at one time — we all “promise to promise,” but on reflection, do we keep that promise? Only you can answer that. We head out west with the next track “See You In Hico,” which again is another nod to that American Legend that I’ll keep under my Stetson, so to speak — homework will of course give you the answer. It has the complete feel of a trip out west.
Just when you think can this album get any better, we are served up track 9, a very beautiful and very well-crafted piece called “I Don’t Wanna Lose You.” The haunting guitars take you right to the heart of the song, a song full of wonderful times spent in wonderful places with the most wonderful person. The vocals from Elaine Green only serve to enhance what is already a gorgeous song… Amazing!!
We then head to the future when we have lift-off with “Take It To The Moon,” a foot-stomper of a track with heavy pounding guitars that make you want to dig out your old air guitar again and join in. It also has the line that we in Scotland say just about every day — “Will it ever stop raining?” That’s how we tell when it’s summer: the rain’s a little warmer. The penultimate track on the album is “These 2 Lines,” another great track which is open for the listener to make their own mind up of what the message is: “We All Have Things To Say” and “We’ve All Got Games To Play”…
The grand finale is a song called “Adios Chicos,” which is a goodbye song — but just who is the goodbye to? How’s the homework coming along? If you’ve done it, you know who the goodbye is to. A fitting tribute to an American Legend indeed.
What can I say — “Can’t Scratch This Itch” from Gordon Banks is a beautifully well-crafted piece of musical art that deserves to be on everyone’s playlist. It’ll be on mine when it’s released on the 14th of August, and it’ll be on repeat too!!
Dave Knight
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