The Malone & Sibun Band Saturday 22nd April 2023
Tickets: £16 in advance (plus £1 postage)
Doors open at 8:00pm
Website: www.malonesibun.com
Nominated at the European Blues Awards for ‘Best Band’, Malone Sibun release a new EP entitled ‘Ashes & Dust’ on Redline Records.
Following on from their critically aimed debut album ‘Come Together’, Malone Sibun - who feature the creative duo of London based, Detroit born and Motown schooled Marcus Malone on vocals and guitar and former Robert Plant guitarist and vocalist Innes Sibun - found themselves with a stack of great reviews, a full gig sheet, a band that was itching to play and then lockdown happened.
“We’d just had the busiest 12 months of both our careers and had been booked by several festivals, but then travelling became almost impossible,” explains Marcus Malone. “I think we managed a couple of shows and I did one live Zoom broadcast to India and that was it.”
On the upside the album received plenty of European and American airplay to solidify the positive reviews and as a result the band’s profile didn’t completely disappear.
As Innes Sibun explains; “The lockdown didn’t mean we just stopped being creative. If anything it made us dig deeper and bring a whole new meaning to the opening track ‘Making It’.
We had to do everything remotely, meaning that although the working process wasn’t as organic and spontaneous as in a face to face situation, I think it made us work harder on our craft.”
‘Ashes & Dust’ suggests they found the perfect way to channel their pent up frustration into a snapshot of a band that covid couldn’t keep down.
Its all there in Innes’s fiery playing and edgy tone and Marcus’s exclamatory phrasing on both the opening and title track, while they bring some stop-time funk to bear on Willie Dixon’s ‘Evil’.
They round everything off with the contrasting dobro-led ballad ‘Restless Heart’, on which Innes’s intricate playing perfectly supports Marcus’s expressive diction on an autobiographical gem.
Marcus adds. “Another unexpected angle of the lockdown was that people seemed to want to reconnect with music. We had lots of enquiries, sold a few more albums and so thought a new EP might just fill the subsequent gap.”
‘Ashes To Dust’ is a contemporary slice of rock-blues and roots played with heart, soul and total commitment by a super group in the making.
Musicians Featured: Kevin O’Rourke, Drums; Tim Blackmore. Keys; Moz Gamble, Keys on Restless Heart, Roger Inniss, Bass