Mr Spider are a Dundee-based 4-piece blues-rock bandfeaturing Michele McLaren on vocals and the album contains all original material. Opening track "Back Home" features a driving, repetitive guitar riff from John (Fox) McNairn and excellent husky vocals. "Purple Shade of Gray" is an instrumental throwback to the days of classic early-'70's British blues-rock and gives the band the chance to show their chops. "Mr Lucky" is a slow-burning blues with Michele's sultry, emotive vocals floating over a churning backing. "Bottle Blues" is an up-tempo punchy number, which probably fills the dancefloor at gigs, as the band extol the virtue of drinking in general, and a "slow comfortable screw" in particular. "Sugar Lane" bursts into life with an Elmore James style slide riff and tells the tale of a hooker touting for business on the seedy side of town.
Cornerstone of the album is the six minute epic "Ain't No Good Men" - driven along by some excellent fuzz guitar from McNairn. "The Melty man" is a driving straight-ahead blues-rocker featuring impasssioned vocals as Michele bemoans her man's poor performance. A change of pace follows with the album's only acoustic song, which features fine slide guitar and effective vocals. "Falling Apart" has a Latin feel and some tasty Santana style guitar riffs. The closer is the four-part "Tears For Bethany Suite", which brings to a close this promising debut album from a band worth looking out for.
Dave Drury for "Blues Matters" magazine, Issue 41 (www.bluesmatters.com, info@bluesmatters.com)

The Dundee Music scene has really sparked interest worldwide primarily by virtue of its indie bands, but the city has a lot more to offer in terms of musical styles, the best bit being that all of them are top quality acts. One other thing that Dundee is now famous for doing is its annula blues weekend where over 100 acts can be seen playing over three days and three nights in venues large and small, right across the city. In the world of blues in Dundee, there is one band that heads the way and that's Mr Spider, a quartet with bass, drums and electric guitars plus, somewhat rare these days, a female vocalist.
Starting life as a covers band playing a wide range of classic seventies blues and blues-rock covers, they gradually started to write their own songs and incorporate them into the covers set. Recently, they've reveled another live side to the band with a set of Classic Rock covers from the seventies. But, increasingly so, the acclaim is coming for their own songs, to such a degree that they've been busy recording them onto album - and this brand new 13 track studio-recorded debut CD is the result.
Almost totally electric band-played blues, they open with a driving number called "Back Home" where vocalist Michele Mclaren immediately makes her presence felt over a cyclical guitar riff courtesy of lead guitarist John (Fox) McNairn and the lurching rhythm work from bassist Mike Fenton and drummer Paul Reoch. Now whereas many female blues singers have a tendency to shout, holler and generally try to emulate their male counterparts, Michele's vocal is more husky and tuneful, subtly powerful as she delivers the lyrics with feeling and emotion ona short and sizzling opener. After that, the band show what they can do with a classic seventies-esque blues instrumental worth of vintage Fleetwood Mac with some searing guitar work from John as the rhythm section lays down the foundations of the track, "Purple Shade Of Gray". Third in is "Mr Lucky" as the band settle back into one of those "Stormy Monday"-esque slow burners in the form of "Mr LuckY", led by some corking soaring guitar work from John over the slowly flowing rhythm section. Michele's vocals sound sultry and full of yearning as she delivers the tale of woe and despair in traditional blues fashion, preferring to use a more clipped manner of delivery for biting effect. John's lead solo in the middle is electric blues slow-emotion joy as the song returns and Michele's vocals become ever more emotive.
"Bottle Blues" is a homage to the joys of drinking with some particularly clever lyrics guaranteed to put a smile on your face as the short, incisive and driving track hits home with Michele extolling the virtues of drinking, and to hear that voice sing the words "slow comfortable Screw" really hits the spot!! Catchy, uptempo and a danceable live favourite, this is a punchy song that works just a treat. "Sugar Lane" erupts into life with a searing slice of electric slide guitar work from John as the lurching rhythms spark into life, and this time Michele really powers up with a performance that ranges "from a whisper to a scream" as she offers her favours for the company that night, while The guitar work shines throughout, ona track that is as sexy as it is strong.
Then onto what is a high point on an already great album, in the form of the epic "Ain't No Good Men", a tale of love and lust, initially driven by a searing slice of solo fuzz electric guitar and Michele's mix of come-hither and high-flying vocals. The rhythm section appears briefly to add strength, then dies away only for the bass on its own to join the surging guitar riffinf for a few seconds before Michele returns sounding even more sexual and powerful than ever, conveying lyrics that'll really have you reaching for the nearest bedroom. As the song climbs , the dynamics come into play, the band crunch in and the whole thing drives forward, a truly magnificent slice of blues originality that can't fail to have you hooked.
After the relative intensity of the previous track, the simply driving blues-rock of "The Melty Man" is perfectly placed, with a solid band-played set of riffs and rhythms as Michele's mid-range vocals soar and deliver the tale with passion and emotion, a surging guitar solo in the middle adding even more bite to the driving song. The album's only acoustic track comes in the form of "Running Man" where it's just John on acoustic slide guitar and Michele on vocals in a classic seventies-esque slice of strong blues performance, Michele delivering a really strong vocal that suits the arrangement, sung to perfection.
"Falling Apart" is a splendid slice of slow-burning blues in the vein of classic early Santana-meets-early Fleetwood Mac, as John provides a really emotive slice of Santana-esque guitar work while Michele sings the strong ballad with feeling, emotion and intensity, that voice still strong and sultry, the bandk laying down a foundation of flowing rhythmic foundations that make a perfect backbone for the guitar and vocal. A great song among great songs.
The last four tracks on the album are gathered together as the "Tears For Bethany Suite", opening with "Dark Days", as John's lone electro-acoustic guitar delivers a slowly swaying backdrop to bassist Mike's vocal, a suitably emotive low-ish register slice of singing on a classic slow-blues burner. "The Dash" opens with throbbing bass from Mike as John's restrained electric slide guitar positively shimmers against Paul's bursts of drumming and cymbal splashes on an instrumental that provides the blues with a whole new slant before the band crash in together and present a driving sea of searing electric instrumental work that really hits home. Following the power of this piece, the emotive near-epic "Tears For Bethany" takes on an altogether different dimension as we mix the slow blues ballad with a gorgeously heartfelt warm and strong vocal from Michele over the delicious Peter Green-esque guitar delicacy and the restrained flow of the rhythm section, the song surprisingly powerful for an emotive, brooding blues ballad with some great lyrics that really hook you into what the song's all about, the arrangement as a whole, full of feeling and emotion. The suite and the album ends with "Empty", and we return to a classic slice of slowly flowing electric blues, again with a touch of the "Stormy Monday's" about it, as that soaring lead guitar once again conjures images of Santana and Green, while Michele delivers a trademark sultry, emotionally powerful, vocal lead over the slowly flowing rhythm section as the song carries you along in its wake of solid blues and strong ballad, a great vocal performance to end the proceedings as Michele strikes out from sultry to high-flying and back again.
Overall, a really strong set of songs in a mix of classic, and their own twist on, electric blues, the result being one seriously excellent debut album that has an appeal across a wide range of ages thanks to the superb songs an the strong playing with the upfront and emotive, truly sung, vocals of Michele. More than just blues, a great song-based album.
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I'm sure most Aural Innovations readers know Andy G and his Dead Earnest label, and may find his newest release a bit of a surprise, given that this isn't a space rock band. But if you visit the Dead Earnest site you'll find that Andy has been active promoting the local music scene in Dundee, Scotland. And among the Dundee locals is the blues rock band, Mr Spider. The band are the quartet of John "Fox" McNairn on guitar, Mike Fenton on bass, Paul Reoch on drums and Michele Mclaren on vocals. The music is a pretty basic brand of blues rock, though the songs themselves are solid, including all the expected blues rock themes like drinking, gambling, and the trials and tribulations of love. The best tracks are the ones where McNairn cuts loose on guitar… the ballsy instrumental "Purple Shade of Gray" and "Bottle Blues" are standout tracks. And I dig the nasty slide guitar on "Sugar Lane" and "Running Man". The last four tracks of the set make up the nearly 18 minute "Tears For Bethany" suite, which includes some of the most ambitious and well played music on the album. The band stray quite a bit from their blues rock core during the suite, making for a much more interesting listen. In summary, as blues rock bands go Mr Spider are pretty basic, and Mclaren isn't the most powerful or passionate of singers, which is kind of a must with this kind of music. But if you listen with an ear toward the bar band aspect then you'll find Web of Lies to be a good fun listen and I've no doubt Mr Spider are rocking live act. The set list link on their web site features a great mixture of original and cover songs.
Jerry Kranitz From Aural Innovations #37 (September 2007)