He looked like a rock star. Turns out he was. Guitarist Nick Singleton stood out when I saw him drinking a beer in Las Vegas in the before-times (pre-COVID). Our music conversation strolled back through years and he told me about playing in UK melodic-rock band The Firebyrds and performing at the legendary Hammersmith Odeon. Sadly, the band found themselves hitting their stride in the wrong decade when everything good about rock-n-roll was suddenly out of fashion. Fast-forward (that’s how we used to skip songs on cassettes, kiddos) a few decades and the world is emerging from a global pandemic in need of a good time. Enter Nick Singleton and friends with their new project The Blue Lena.
I should probably ask him if they are named for Keith Richards’ 1965 Bentley but I love the idea of that so much that I don’t want to know if I’m wrong. The band’s new EP Severnlands offers a three-song peak into what they have been up to as they work towards a full album and The Rolling Stones are a fine touchpoint for what it sounds like. Mixing blues and melodic rock, the songs dance across the worn floors of forgotten clubs where hard-working bands never meant to play an arena poured out their hearts night after night. It takes musicians who made it a bit further up the career ladder but never lost sight of what really matters – the songs.
Opener “Only When She’s Dancing” elicited a “that sounds like Bryan Adams” from the kitchen when I started listening and I couldn’t disagree. Having recently seen Adams live, his guitar chops and the strength of the songs have lost nothing. Can’t fault a man for writing some movie ballads to pay for new toys and when Bryan Adams wants to rock, he can write a guitar hook with the best of them. “Only When She’s Dancing” is the most straight-ahead rocker on the EP and it grooves. There was a time when you could dance to rock-n-roll and The Blue Lena take me there again.
Leaning harder into the blues on “Sanctity”, the band kicks a bit harder and reminds me that there was some damn fine rock-n-roll in the 90s by a band of Black Crowes who flew high. However, it’s closer “Sometimes” that gets me most excited about a full Blue Lena record. This song would have been a chart-topping ballad for any of a number of 80s melodic rock bands from Cinderella to Warrant to even Bon Jovi. Of course, that only proves that most of the bands I loved as a kid were listening to the second side of Sticky Fingers and no amount of hair-spray can erase the blues from the edges of rock-n-roll. As concert venues find their footing again and amps are loaded back into the clubs, here’s hoping there are more bands like The Blue Lena about to surface from isolation and make us raise our lighters (ok, cell phones) high during an unforgettable chorus or two.