Titled as if its a sequel to Alvin Lee’s all-star 1973 debut album On the Road to Freedom with Mylon LeFevre, this new album from the Ten Years After frontman actually works as a more direct, personal statement.
Instead of flashy guest musicians like George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Mick Fleetwood and Ron Wood, Lee lets his own roving muse do the talking. Instead of the initial project’s country-rocking gospel influences, Still on the Road to Freedom unfolds as a kind of travelogue — taking in Lee’s history, both thematically and musically, even while moving (as the title implies) ever forward.
The album — due August 28, 2012, via Rainman Records — started, Lee says, as a stockpile of 33 songs written over the last four years. In whittling them down to 12, along with one key cover, Lee has not only ensured that his best, most complete thoughts are shared here, he’s given Still on the Road to Freedom a layered, ever-intriguing sense of narrative propulsion.
[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: Through Ten Years After’s ‘A Space in Time’ begins with a sweaty, dense blues, the album ends up as a more refined, less rough effort for Alvin Lee and Co.]
The title track recalls the dreamscape blues of standout moments like “I’d Love to Change the World” with Ten Years After, while “Save My Stuff” and “Blues Got Me So Bad” simply leave off the “dreamscape” part — going deep into a dusky Delta groove. Lee isn’t done mixing and matching styles: He samples a loop of drummer Ian Wallace on the rumbling “Listen to Your Radio State,” and then unfurls a loose, Memphis-soaked jam on “Down Line Rock.” He adds some Latin spice for “Son of the Red Rock Mountain,” a simmering instrumental, then channels the So-Cal roots rock vibe of Eric Clapton’s early solo work on “Walk On, Walk Tall” and “Nice and Easy.”
Best of all, perhaps, is “Back in 69,” with its flinty Bo Diddley cadence and damning indictments of those who let go of the 1960s era’s most important dreams. Then, in a move that brilliantly connects the end to this project’s opening song, Lee updates “Love Like a Man,” a funky New Orleans R&B-inspired number from Ten Years After’s 1970 album Cricklewood Green — giving Still on the Road to Freedom this finely tuned sense of closure.
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