Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Roll the dice and call your number, you can do worse than watch the emotional smorgasbord that takes place in any Casino after hours. The rolling of the bones, life at its most infinite, desperate, joyful, regretful and cunning, the observance of the cheater who thinks they have gone unnoticed, the player surrounded by the handsome, the rich and the gullible. All hoping for their mark and their cut of the fortune on offer, the Casino holds their attention to the last dime has been wagered.
If you are to make a bet, to gamble on a name coming out on top, striking home with a series of aces in the hand, then in a huge entertaining way you might only get short odds on Scottish sensation Anchor Lane, after the house knows a sure thing when its sees one, and with their debut album, Casino held out for all to see, the smart money will always back a certainty, a winning formula.
The ability to see that the cards are stacked in your favour takes practise, intuition, and perhaps a small amount of luck; but for Anchor Lane’s Conor Gaffney, Lawrence O’Brien, Matthew Quigley and Scott Hanlon, luck plays no part in their terrifically rich and entertaining album, what is insisted upon is the recognition of practise, practise and then overwhelmingly practise; for if such a pastime makes perfect, then Anchor Lane have scored an inside straight every time.
It also helps to a person on the inside, not exactly shuffling the cards from the bottom of the deck in which to improve the odds, but one who knows where the cameras are pointing at the right moment and who can advise accordingly, and with Ricky Warwick, of Black Star Riders and Thin Lizzy fame, co-writing two of the band’s songs, Blood & Irony and Dead Run, the feeling of the assured win is complete.
With track such as Voodoo, Stone Cold Hearted, Shell Of Me and the two aforementioned tracks, Blood & Irony and Dead Run, all laying down the winning hand, Casino is a debut album which takes the cynic for all their money and hands good fortune and great times to the listener. Compelling, provocative, urgent and dynamic, Casino is a house built on solid foundations.
Anchor Lane release Casino on January 31st 2020 via R7 Records.
Ian D. Hall