Peter and the Wolves
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Review: Peter And The Wolves - Love/Hate Thing
Peter And The Wolves - Love/Hate Thing
2008, Peter Foret
Peter And The Wolves have been rocking Ottawa and the outer environs since 1985. Band leader Peter Foret writes and plays music in a vast array of styles across several different bands. Peter And The Wolves’ latest release, Love/Hate Thing came out in 2008. It’s worth a listen.
Love/Hate Thing opens sounding like a 1970's jazz/pop/soul record. You could easily hear someone like Al Jarreau singing the opening track, Gravity. Love/Hate Thing (The title track) has a funky core with dancing synth and a great horn section. Peter Foret has a pleasant voice: not earth shattering but an easy listen. His mellow vocal style fits perfectly to the arrangements here. I Found A Love sounds like something out of the James Taylor catalog from the 1970's. Trail Of Tears is one of my personal favorites, an upbeat pop/funk piece that would have been right at home in about 1978.
The Chill steps forward into 1980's gritty funk, with some nasty guitar work on the edges. The best performance on Love/Hate Thing is the reggae driven Kiss Me You Fool. Foret's vocals get a little odd here. More specifically he seems to lose his ability to enunciate at points during the song. This is a minor point but it does draw attention away from the performance which is excellent. I Do will end up on mix tapes for those who are lucky enough to hear this CD. Color Me Gone is an upbeat outro, followed up by Carry Me Back, which plods into the finish line as perhaps the only true weak link on the CD.
Peter And The Wolves play a sugary blend of jazz and pop that is sure to be a crowd pleaser. It's not terribly challenging music but is fun to listen to. Foret shows flashes of brilliance as a songwriter, but spends most of Love/Hate Thing just being very good, which is more than good enough. This CD is definitely worth spending some time on.
Rating: 3 Stars (Out of 5)
This review is from “Wildy’s World”
http://wildysworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/review-peter-and-wolves-lovehate-thing.html
- Wildy's World
Review of “Love/Hate Thing” by Peter and the Wolves
Pete Foret and his band “Peter and the Wolves” have released a fine debut CD, “Love Hate Thing”. Having grown up with Pete and as a guitar player myself I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of this collection and I wasn’t disappointed….Pete was a guy who unlike most guitar players, really learned the instrument correctly from day one….in fact we’d recruit him to work with us at our rehearsals, mostly to show us the correct chord forms of the cover tunes we did. He could play Rock, Jazz and R & B equally well ….to Progressive Rock from the 60’s and 70’s and later became a prolific songwriter. He was polished, had great tone and time but also had a rootsy honesty to his approach as well. The songs he wrote and sang in his Boston area group “Changes” were the best of the band’s material and they released 2 records during their run in the 70’s.
Those attributes serve him well on this nine song disc, of which he wrote and arranged all the tunes. “Gravity” starts things off and sets the tone for the R & B grooves that follow, replete with a killer horn chart and compositionally feels like a Becker and Fagan number.
“Love Hate Thing” is my favorite track and it’s the right one to be the title cut. This is vintage Foret with an edgy guitar vamp, killer horn arrangement, a percussionist that kicks butt and in a nod to 70’s funk, a clavinet part moves the whole thing along. Add a great hook, strong vocals and harmonies and that signature horn line and you’ve got yourself a winner.
“Found a Love” is roots rock meets 60’s R & B, also propelled by another infectious horn track.
“Trail of Tears” is a very well written tune and another favorite. Timbales set this one apart, as does the chorus that stays with you after the first listen….Foret rips a nasty guitar solo that builds to a fever pitch with his melodic licks.
“The Chill” is another stellar track and the verses sung in octaves is really effective at giving the lead vocal urgency. Great piano part and the harmonies in the last verse help resolve the whole tune…Lots of twists and turns melodically and the guitar solo at the tag just smokes.
“Kiss Me You Fool” makes good use of acoustic guitar and production with a world beat feel.
“I Do” has good pop sensibilities, there’s a touch of Todd Rundgren influence in the writing, the arrangement is spot on, again with a strong R & B influence.
“Color Me Gone” is a fine swing blues tune with a great arrangement, a smoking guitar solo, even a touch of rockabilly on this one. Foret always handled blues the right way and this is no exception….
“Carry Me Back” closes the disc out with an appropriate ballad that features a very complex horn intro that reflects Foret’s understanding of jazz forms. The bridge resolves the song in a unique way back to the last verse.
A real “Anthem” to end the CD
The high quality of the production, performance and songwriting of this release should garner Peter and the Wolves some new fans. It’s a great listen from beginning to end, a really fine effort!
Bruce Marshall
www.brucemarshall.net
- www.brucemarshall.net
Discography
Love/Hate Thing [LP]
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Bio
The late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s were a time of experimentation in rock music, and incorporating elements of jazz was the focus of many of the top artists of that era. Van Morrison hired virtuoso jazz bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay [of The Modern Jazz Quartet] to record his landmark album Astral Weeks, followed by Moondance, one of the jazz-iest pop singles ever. Blood, Sweat & Tears released their first two albums featuring, rich, melodic horn lines and bop solos. Carlos Santana cited John Coltrane and Miles Davis as influences, and 1972’s Caravanserai, considered one of his best albums, confirms it. Frank Zappa [Hot Rats and Waka Jawaka albums], Chicago Transit Authority, Brian Auger and the Trinity, Chase and, later, Steely Dan – all were striving to fuse jazz with rock music.
Ottawa, Ontario's Peter and the Wolves approach their ‘70’s–style original music in a similar way – pop/rock with an adult sensibility, anchored by a rock rhythm section with Latin percussion and 4 horns. Guitarist/vocalist [and bandleader] Peter Forêt is the main song writer, and his work suggests a wide range of influences, from Van Morrison to Todd Rundgren, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Jackson Browne and Randy Newman. Stylistically there are elements of Afro-Cuban, southern rock, blues/rock, rhythm & blues and, of course, jazz.
“The Wolves” rank among the region’s busiest, and best, freelance musicians. They’ve performed with Alanis Morrissette, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Colin James, Natalie Cole, The National Arts Centre Orchestra, Gladys Knight, Lou Rawls, David “Fathead” Newman, Josh Groban, Frankie Valli and Martha Reeves. The band’s roster includes world-class jazz players Mark Ferguson [Holly Cole, Manteca] and saxophonist Mike Tremblay, veteran rockers Forêt and Eddy Bimm [Cooper Bros., Les Emmerson], drummer Tom Denison, Ron Ferguson, Brian Asselin [The Funk Bros., J.W. Jones], René Fortier [Robert Paquette] Dave Arthur and Martin Newman [The Flaps].
It’s been the band’s mission to experiment with style and substance, and to bring together great players with diverse experience, to create music uniquely their own. From it’s inception as a 3-piece bar band in 1985, Peter and the Wolves sought to recapture the spirit of the golden age of rock music. They’ve done just that.
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