JEFF BECK
Loud Hailer
(Rhino)

When Paul McCartney decided to challenge himself by stepping out of his comfort zone in the early 1990s, he hooked up with the producer Youth and surreptitiously made electronic music under the anonymous moniker The Fireman. Considering the surprising route Jeff Beck’s taken on Loud Hailer, one wonders if he ever considered opting for a new nom de plume of his own.

Loud Hailer finds Beck, a guitar wizard who originally rose to fame in The Yardbirds in the 1960s, collaborating with feisty London rocker Rosie Bones, the daughter of The Goodies’ hairy hippie Bill Oddie. Bones delivers politically-charged vignettes on the bulk of the album, throwing her lyrical grenades at oil companies and big business. It’s more Hi Ho Metal Lining than Hi Ho Silver Lining in some places, with a gritty industrial thump anchoring songs like Live In The Dark and the savage instrumental Pull It.

The bluesy Right Now takes aim at the online generation’s constant FOMO (“They want it right now, right now, don’t know what they want but they want it right now,” Bones muses), while Thugs Club finds Bones pouring scorn, arching an eyebrow and soapboxing her dismay at the 21st century’s hard-hearted leaders of industry. Equipped with the rasp, vamp and sass of a post-modern Wendy James, Bones makes for an interesting foil for Beck. His Les Paul howls like a caged direwolf on the fiery opening tracks, while thoughtful ballad Scared For The Children adds a gleaming David Gilmour-esque solo among the harmonics.

Veteran rockers are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. While some are chastised for living off the past and staying locked away in their castles, those who dare press reset on expectations are similarly chided. Loud Hailer may antagonise fans who are still spinning Beck’s Bolero on their 1971 Marantz system, but it’s hard to ignore that Beck is sounding vitalised by the opportunity to collaborate with Rosie Bones and her guitarist sidekick Carmen Vandenberg.

Songs calling for new world order can be hard to digest when they’re delivered by a millionaire rock god and a lyricist who grew up spending family holidays in the Isles Of Scilly and Portugal, but you can’t knock Beck for challenging himself – and his audience.

- SM