I just picked Black Country Communion imaginatively-titled "2" up from Amazon's MP3s store yesterday. When I first heard the clips on Amazon, I was a bit nonplussed. I had a chance to listen to a couple of tracks all the way through (via the Man in the Middle video, etc.) and was convinced to buy it. It sounds quite different, IMO, from their first album. This one sounds more cohesive, like a real band record, like they have found their sound. There's a lot of Led Zeppelin/Deep Purple influence in here. They even plugged in the mic for Derek Sherinian's keyboards this time. You can definitely tell he's there now, although this is not a keyboard-driven album by any means. In general, it seems to rock a bit harder too. The mix seems to be a old-school too, more muted than the first album.

On the first album, there were a couple of tracks that sounded like they could just as easily have been on a Bonamassa solo album, especially my favorite track from that album, "Song of Yesterday". While there can be no doubt that Joe is in the band and an integral part of it, this is a BCC album, not a solo record with a different label. It's a modern take on a 70s-era rawk album. I'll have to give it a few more listens before I can say which tracks are my favorites. In the meantime, here's the aforementioned video:



And a bit of "The Outsider"