Let there be no doubt of
Joe Elliott’s deep love of
Mott the Hoople. Who else would -- or could -- craft an album-length salute to the music the group made after
Ian Hunter left, rounding up highlights from
Hunter’s solo albums and the much-disparaged records by
Mott and
the British Lions? Better still, who else could make a record good enough to suggest that those neglected LPs were unfairly maligned? That’s exactly what he’s down with
My Regeneration, the album he’s made with his Down 'n' Outz, a band he formed with
the London Quireboys with the purpose of opening for the reunited
Mott the Hoople in 2009 at the Hammersmith Apollo (which
Elliott insists on calling the Hammersmith Odeon in his liner notes to
My Regeneration).
Elliott came up with the inspired idea of playing the post-
Mott songs, figuring that if he was in the audience that’s exactly what he’d be excited to hear. The set went across like gangbusters so they decided to carry on the fun by cutting a full album, which also turns out to be a roaring good time. There are a pair of familiar tunes here -- the Vanda & Young classic “Good Times,” which
Mott cut in 1976, and
Hunter’s “England Rocks” -- but for the most part
Elliott excavated songs ignored by even many
Mott diehards, finding unheralded classics from the pens of Pete Overend Watts and
Morgan Fisher, along with several sterling selections from
Hunter. The selection is first-rate but what makes
My Regeneration such a blast is the untrammeled enthusiasm of Down 'n' Outz. These guys don’t add any frills to these songs -- if anything, they strip them away; the
Mott songs aren’t nearly as overstuffed as those on
Shouting and Pointing -- they just barrel through these songs as if there’s nothing else they’d rather be doing, and if you have any measure of love for
Mott the Hoople, you’ll be hard-pressed not to have a good time. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine