“Sweet Tea,” the just-released lead track from Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham’s self-titled California Breed debut, makes clear that 23-year-old guitarist Andrew Watt is no Joe Bonamassa. There’s not a whiff of the blues-rock underpinnings from their time with Black Country Communion. No, this is balls-out rawk.
For Hughes and Bonham, it’s a chance to reemerse themselves in a sound that’s embedded in their very DNA as former collaborators with the likes of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. More particularly, they get to walk confidently — hell, as “Sweet Tea” unleashes a nervy mix of lip-smacking sexuality and bloody-knuckled aggression, it sounds like they’re absolutely running — away from the bad mojo surrounding Black Country Communion’s sudden end.
This, of course, is to take nothing away from BCC, a group that — along with Derek Sherinian — brilliantly reanimated the 1970s-era of blues-fueled arena-filling rock. But there’s something distilled about “Sweet Tea,” something leaner, more direct and ultimately primordial that wasn’t there before.
California Breed, due May 20, 2014 from Frontiers/Universal, was produced by Dave Cobb (Rival Sons, Shooter Jennings) and features 12 new band-written tracks — along with a bonus song (“Solo”) and videos for “Sweet Tea” and “The Way” on a special CD/DVD deluxe edition.
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