Godfathers - I'm Not Your Slave/Wild and Free

  by John Clarkson

published: 25 / 6 / 2020

Label: Godfathers Recordings
Format: CDS

intro

First-rate double A-sided single in a new line-up from alternative rock band the Godfathers, released to coincide with their 35th anniversary

Peter Coyne caused some controversy last August when he sacked the entire then line-up of the Godfathers because they weren’t showing any interest in making another album. Vocalist and founding member Coyne has, however, never wanted the band he has fronted for 35 years now to become unstuck by nostalgia. He has always been concerned about pushing it forward, and clearly made the right decision as live shows in February revealed the latest incarnation of the Godfathers - guitarists Richie Simpson and Wayne Vermaak, bassist Jon Priestley and drummer Billy Duncanson – to be stunning. Their new double A-sided single ‘I’m Not Your Slave/Wild and Free’ – their debut release in the present line-up – is also as vital as anything that the Godfathers have released in their lengthy career. From the opening rattle of Duncanson’s drums to Simpson and Vermaak’s razor-tight, duelling guitars and Coyne’s belligerent vocals in between to its rapidly accelerating end, ‘I’m Not Your Slave’ is gripping. ‘Wild and Free’ is slightly murkier and denser in sound, but equally exciting, and a whiplash, sirening instrumental in its middle shows off just how powerful this new line-up is. ‘I’m Not Your Slave’ is about a relationship fall-out (“I’m not your slave, girl/Set me free”). The target matter of ‘Wild and Free’ is more oblique, but when Peter Coyne sings on it, “I am moving forward with a positive motion/And, yes, that is beautiful to me,” he is summing up his own present situation exactly. On the evidence of ‘I’m Not Your Slave/Wild and Free’, the next Godfathers album will be something worth waiting for.

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