Grace Potter & The Nocturnals: The Lion The Beast The Beat

The female Tom Petty?

By Malcolm Dome
( Classic Rock )
published

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This woman can sing. Grace Potter has a voice to send shivers through every orifice. It’s reminiscent at turns of Stevie Nicks, Tori Amos, Chrissie Hynde and Grace Slick. But ultimately she has her own style, and it perfectly suits a set of songs that has influences ranging from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers through to Bruce Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac.

There’s a balance between vulnerability and confidence on the melodically empowered drift of Parachute Heart, the wistfully emotive Timekeeper and the funkier upbeat 60s chime of Loneliest Soul. These are songs destined to become a crucial part of the soundtrack for 2013.

But this isn’t only about Potter. The Nocturnals are a superb ensemble, cast in the style of The Band and able to augment the vocals, while also displaying disciplined virtuosity. The album gets better with every play. Every track is full of fascinating nooks and crannies to explore. Brilliant.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.