Beyond the Sound

Anyone who wonders what ever became of the Detroit High Energy sound of the late '60s and early '70s needs to know about one of the Midwest's best-kept secrets, Powertrane. Featuring two longtime veterans of the Detroit music scene, Scott Morgan (lead singer with the Rationals and Fred "Sonic" Smith's sidekick in Sonic's Rendezvous Band) and Robert Gillespie (lead guitarist with Rob Tyner's post-MC5 solo group and Mitch Ryder sideman), Powertrane's live shows have been showing fans that the punch and swagger of Michigan's rock & roll glory days are still alive and well, and the group's first studio album, Beyond the Sound, reveals that they can make the same lightning strike outside of a packed club. Scott Morgan may be one of the most criminally overlooked singers in rock & roll — he can wail with gale force power, but he's also a gifted soul shouter (check out the heartfelt "Pearl" for evidence), and the conviction and power he brings to his vocals are little short of inspiring (especially given how long he's been in the game), and he's a solid rhythm guitarist to boot. Morgan's songs are no slouch, either, and tunes like "Nightliner," "Chilly Willy Is Missing," and "I Stole Everything" are smart, provocative journal entries from a life lived for music. Robert Gillespie's guitar work is a perfect foil for Morgan's vocals, laying in thick, chunky leads and bare-wire solos that put Charles Atlas-sized muscles on the frontman's frameworks (he also collaborated with Morgan on many of the disc's best tunes), and the young turks that make up the rhythm section — Chris "Box" Taylor on bass and Andy Frost on drums — throw these performances into overdrive, delivering power and speed as well as no small amount of precision and soul along the way. While Beyond the Sound may have one foot in Detroit rock & roll traditions, the grit, heart and explosive force of this music is thoroughly contemporary, and the result is a flamethrower of an album anyone who loves real rock will need to hear.