The Sidney Green Street Band
Half Live
(The Sidney Green Street Band)

With twangy solid beats, well-placed harmonies, and stellar songwriting The Sidney Green Street Band hit hard with singable tunes on their new album, Half Live. This is a four-piece band made up of talented, seasoned players: songwriter/lead singer/guitarist Lance Doss, singer/guitarist Justin Jordan, bassist Paul Page, and (rock legend drummer Steve Holly. What the foursome present here is an album of tunes recorded in the studio, half live at The Great Notch Inn (a classic historic-tavern in Northern New Jersey).

Half Live opens with a tribute, “Muscle Shoals,” featuring cutting leads, slide, harmonies and basic hitting from Holly. The heavier and slide-jangle-led “Last Beer and Testament” follows. This one is really swampy and fun. There’s more of the double-guitar attack on “Next Time,” revealing a roiling riff where Page follows the guitars and Holly lays back under the storytelling song’s harmonies.

There’s a funky open-air-like strut to the first track of the album’s live side, “I Belong.” This one will instantly remind you of The Band, with its wonderful chorus harmonies and simple yet effective songwriting from Doss. Once again the band plays in expert lock-step to what’s needed; nothing more and nothing less.

Chuckin’ power chords inform “Bad Bad Way,” a song built on not much more then the nasty guitar and Doss offering lustful pronouncements, while the infectious “Rock Star,” a great romp of a tune, ends with Doss out front seemingly having the time of this life describing what he wants and how he tries to get it.

Half Live from The Sidney Green Street Band is a truly perfect record you will listen to again and again. Get it!