Steve Louw: releases "Cruel Hand of Fate" featuring Joe Bonamassa from new album "Between Time" incoming

Louw’s new album, Between Time, arrives decades into a long career, stretching back to the 1990s, when Louw partnered with South African record producer Kevin Shirley while fronting Big Sky, his vehicle to acclaim in his native South Africa.


Louw broke back into the music scene rousingly with his 2021 solo album Headlight Dreams, which Shirley helped push into existence, telling Louw after a decade of silence that it was time for him to make another record. He assembled a crack band, including keyboardist Kevin McKendree (John Hiatt), drummer Greg Morrow (Billy Gibbons), bass player Alison Prestwood (Buddy Miller), guitarists Rob McNelley (Hank Williams Jr), and Doug Lancio (Bob Dylan).

Headlight Dreams received solid reviews and earned him his third South African Music Award nomination. Thunder and Rain followed hot on its heels, a rich and natural album of muscular folk and insistent rock, a blend that Louw has refined throughout his career.

With Between Time, he explores those moments that fall outside the strict constructs of time with songs that have past, present, and future, while using imagery that’s both timeless and present. Cut live in the studio with his same band; the music has a transcendent quality, a chemistry that blends craft and inspiration into something mystical.


The stars align on three songs recorded back-to-back on the same day. The heartfelt “Killers”, where ‘Killers with numbers not names, came killing across the plains’, flows into, ‘In the Badlands, sand turned to dust, outsiders stand, steel turned to rust’, on the driving “Giants Walk The Land” (co-written with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie), and to a new beginning on “Time to Get On,” ‘As we face to the sun, it’s time to get on’.

Hearing the band discover the inherent passion and tenderness within the songs is part of the pleasure of Between Time. Their chemistry is evident on the low-down shuffle of “Do Me Good” and the country honk of “Alibi.” They swing hard on “Get Real Gone” and ratchet up the tension on “Flowers on The Graves of Doves,” a ringing, roiling number that conjures the mystery of early R.E.M.


You feel the band as much as you hear them, as on “Highway to the Sun,” the eight-minute exit to the 20-song collection. Louw is as much a member of the band as he is its leader. His steady, propulsive guitar playing providing as much of a connective tissue as his unguarded voice.

Added to that is Jim Moginie, whose eclectic guitar sound and creative force evoke the natural world’s power on “Giants Walk The Land,” and Hammond maestro Lachy Doley, who teases out the reassuring comfort lurking within “Streets of Rain.”

Between Time is a record filled with compassion and heart, a defining album for an artist who has consistently delivered great-sounding music over several decades.


Between Time - Track Listing

CD1
Alibi (4:07)
We Had It All (3:37)
Beggar Tonight (4:40)
Giant’s Walk The Land (4:45)
Killers (4:40)
StreetJanes Dream#3 (5:24)
Do Me Good (4:06)
Flowers From The Graves Of Doves (4:07)
Don’t Leave A Heart Alone (3:22)
Time To Get On (5:38)

CD2
Get Real Gone (3:33)
The Way Your Heart Beats (2:05)
Take Me For A Ride (3:56)
Streets Of Rain (4:07)
Cruel Hand Of Fate (5:19)
Free To Fly (2:10)
You ‘n Me Tonight (3:08)
Cold Cold Rails (3:45)
Ever Be Undone (4:44)
Highway To The Sun (7:59)

Album Credits

Produced by Kevin Shirley.
Recorded and mixed at Ocean Way Studios, Nashville, TN
Tracks 4,14 and 18 mixed at The Cave, Sydney.
Engineered by Austin Atwood
Mixed by Kevin Shirley
Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, ME.

Musicians

Steve Louw: Acoustic Guitar and Vocals
Doug Lancio: Electric Guitar and Mandolin
Kevin McKendree: Keyboards
Alison Prestwood: Bass
Greg Morrow: Drums and Percussion

Additional Musicians

Jim Moginie: Electric guitar, keyboards (Track 4)
Joe Bonamassa: Lead Electric Guitar (Track 15)
Randy Flowers: Electric Guitar (Tracks 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 19, 20)
Rob McNelley: Electric Guitar (Tracks 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16)
Lachy Doley: Hammond Organ (Track 14)

Backing Vocalists

Kim Fleming: Backing Vocals (Tracks 2, 13, 16)
Devonne Fowlkes: Backing Vocals (Tracks 2, 13, 16)
Jade MacRae: Backing Vocals (Track 17)
Danielle DeAndrea: Backing Vocals (Track 17)