Originally a collaboration between
Ride
guitarist
Andy Bell
and Scottish boxer turned singer/songwriter
Alex Lowe
,
Hurricane #1
released two well-received albums on
Alan McGee
's
Creation Records
in the '90s before
Bell
left the band and ultimately joined as bassist with
Oasis
. After
's departure,
called it a day and
Lowe
embarked on a solo career. In 2013, with three solo albums to his credit as well as a fruitful career as an abstract impressionist painter,
was diagnosed with cancer. After successfully undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy,
decided to put together a new
lineup, a decision encouraged by
McGee
. Borrowing an infamous phrase that has been attributed to both
Charles Bukowski
and
Kinky Friedman
's first new album in 16 years, 2015's
Find What You Love and Let It Kill You
, is a return to the group's anthemic classic rock and '60s psych rock-influenced sound. Amicably moving forward without
functions primarily as an outlet for
's melodic,
Faces-esque
compositions. Heavily, if somewhat unfairly, compared to
when they debuted in 1997, the new
still retains some of that band's swaggering melodicism. That said, 20 years on from "Cool Britannia" and the
Blur
vs.
battles of the '90s,
now seems to wear the mantle of Brit-pop survivor with the befitting gravitas and hard-won pride of a guy who's suffered worse agonies than being compared to another band. Cuts like the leadoff "Best Is Yet to Come" and the rollicking "Think of the Sunshine" are groovy, '60s-style folk-rock songs buoyed nicely by
's throaty croon. Similarly,
reveals a fondness for rootsy Americana, as on the twangy, sad-eyed "Coyote Ahoy" and the driving,
Byrds-ian
"Heathen Mother." That said,
the boxer lives on, and cuts like "Crash" and "Where to Begin" are bluesy guitar fuzz-soaked anthems, with flashes of festival muscle reminiscent of
's early sound. By the time you get to the haunting sacred choral-tinged album closer, a spare, moaning synth set against
's harmonized and repeated vocal refrain of "Find what you love, and let it kill ya," it becomes clear that for
, reuniting
is less about celebrating past glories than defying the odds and moving forward. ~ Matt Collar