Technically, ‘Whiplash’ is boas third full-length, but the discography and narrative of the London-based band is a little more complicated than that. Formed in 1993 as a funk outfit, their first album is technically 1998’s ‘The Race Of A Thousand Camels’, though due to label issues it was subsequently re-released as ‘Twilight’ in 2001. There was also an unreleased full-length, ‘Acton Live’, that preceded it, which was subsequently uploaded and made available online in 2010.
And while 2005’s second record ‘Get There’ is officially ‘Whiplash’’s predecessor, there was also another unreleased album called ‘The Farm’ made available online in 2017, though that straddled the time-space continuum by gathering unreleased material from 1994 and ’95. In addition to this, founding member Steve Rodgers – the son of Free/Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers – left the group in 2005, while keyboard player/percussionist Paul Turrell left in 2001 and subsequently passed away in 2017. Now, in 2024, the band consists of Rodgers’ sister Jasmine, bassist Alex Caird and keyboard player/percussionist Lee Sullivan.
Though none of them were part of the band at the very start, all joined early enough in its life for the weight of its complex history to have a profound effect on them – not least because despite such a long gap between records, the band never actually broke up. And so ‘Whiplash’shimmers with the influence of that complex past, but also with the strong musical relationships that the band’s members have cultivated over that time.
Throughout – whether on the powerful and arresting regret of opener ‘Let Me Go’, the beautiful and broken lilt of ‘Beautiful & Broken’ or the insistent, hypnotic pulse of ‘Frozen’ – guitars twinkle gently and darkly, while the rest of the instrumentation and Rodgers’ captivating vocals lead the songs into a dark yet hopeful territory. That’s especially true of ‘Vienna’, the up-tempo gloom of the title track and the rush of emotional finality that powers ‘Seafarer’. And though the record runs out of steam somewhat on the final two songs, ‘I Don’t Know’ and ‘Shadow’, ‘Whiplash’ is nevertheless a long overdue and welcome return for a band who have been gone too long.
7/10
Words:Mischa Pearlman