ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, AUG. 24, 1995
By Steve Newton
The first sign that Brother Cane’s long-awaited second release would be a doozy came when the Alabama quartet used material from Seeds to seriously blow Slash’s Snakepit off the stage at the Commodore a while back.
Like fellow southerners Collective Soul, Brother Cane has bolstered the rootsier, blues-based flavour of its debut with a grittier, more urban feel, the result being that cuts such as “Kerosene” and “Hung on a Rope” are now in the running, with Collective Soul’s mighty “Gel”, for best guitar-rock tune of the year.
Lead singer Damon Johnson exudes a vocal presence as potent as that of Eddie Vedder, his guitar dexterity proves invaluable, and his songwriting on Seeds yields not one bad apple among the dozen tracks.