Wow, how much musical experience can you cram into one album!? The Disappointments are three veterans of local music – Hammond Gamble, Andy MacDonald and Brent Eccles – rocked NZ in the ‘70s as Street Talk, and after reforming to open for a Seasick Steve gig they decided to record some new material.

Good, solid, soulful, bluesy rock is the order of the day here. You’d be right to expect tight playing, powerful vocals and some proper ‘feel’. Other bands struggle to play with this kind of real authority, and it’s sometimes difficult to capture in a recording studio too.

But this album, recorded at Roundhead, is brimming with that indefinable juju that experienced musicians exude. Gamble’s guitar solos are a masterclass in tone and taste while the bass and drums are solid enough to build a skyscraper on.

Lyrics cover long-standing blues themes of love and loss, good luck and bad. Some moments of beautiful vulnerability (The Sky Is A Sea Of Stars) rub shoulders with brash songs titles like Fuck Off (Instrumental). Contributors Stephen Small (various keys) and Terry Manning (vocals and harmonica) flesh out the sound, not that it isn’t already meaty enough.

This trio of oldies have successfully risen above their self-deprecating name. Long may they play on.