#friendlytown

Song Review: Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour feat. Brian May - “Too Much Stress”

“Too Much Stress” has a lot of cooks. But it doesn’t really cook.

The lead single from Steve Cropper’s forthcoming (Aug. 23) Friendlytown finds the M.G. supported by the Midnight Hour with Billy F. Gibbons and features Brian May on guitar and vocals. But it’s an uptempo mish-mash of guitar solos, Queenly backgrounds and silly lyrics delivered by May:

I’m behind, I must confess/my apologies/too much stress/too much stress/just to keep my head straight/takes all my power/life is coming at me/like, 100 miles per hour, he sings.

Full of talent though it may be, “Too Much Stress” is an empty vessel of a track.

Grade card: Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour feat. Brian May - “Too Much Stress” - C-

Jock the dead cat and Vannila the fennec fox. Vannila’s a quiet fox who just moved into ‘FriendlyTown’. They end up meeting a strange cat who won’t leave them alone. Play games with him! Talk to him! Hug him! A lot! Tell him he’s beautiful! Please? He stays clear of everyone else in the town sometimes but Vannila’s not so bad. Nobody seems to like Jock very much. Might be because he’s dead but still walkin’ around.

Song Review: Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour - “Friendlytown”

There’s hopeless blues and there’s hopeful blues. Steve Cropper’s “Friendlytown,” a guitar-driven, brass-goosed number about feeling bad until the good guys come along, is the latter.

Don’t let it get you down you could be walkin’ into Friendlytown, Cropper sings on the cut, which was preceded by “Too Much Stress.”

Billy F. Gibbons is one of four co-writers - including Cropper - on “Friendlytown” and his ZZ influence is obvious the title track from Cropper’s forthcoming (Aug. 23) LP.

Grade card: Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour - “Friendlytown” - C+