Album Notes

ACOUSTIC MAGAZINE UK JUNE 2011
Any band who can put together this name and album title, with an opening track called 'The Trans Slambovian Bipolar Express', has got to be worth a listen. and indeed, the Slambovians are.
Evidently possessed of a large underground following, this swirling, spiralling, crazy rock and roll adventure is the band's fourth studio effort, though to my chagrin it's the first l've heard of them. They've been called 'the hillbilly Pink Floyd" but that doesn't begin to encompass it. These are great songs, captured in a chaotic, unstoppable and barely describable landslide of an album. Buy it. and join the trip.

R2 (Rock'n'Reel) Magazine June 2011
THE GRAND SLAMBOVIANS *****
Can it be true? Have the Slambovians embraced the mainsream? Their new album, which preceded the band's longest ever UK tour, seems to suggest so. lt opens with clashing guitars leading into the uncharacteristically heavy 'The Trans-Slambovian BiPolar Express' and everything but the title is solid rock.
Once inside, however, things begin to mutate just a bit. Joziah Longo puts on his best Dylan voice for'Lost Highway'and the title track begins with a snippet of nursery rhyme before developing into a superb country-rocker decorated by Sharkey McEwen's guitar and underpinned by what sounds like a banjo but may not be. There is any number of other potential radlo hits including 'Very Happy Now', 'The Invisible' and 'Who 1s This Girl?' that could propel Gandalf and his chums into the nation's consciousness. The Grand Slambovians is an album of brilliantly catchy songs.
Can it be that this is their most accomplished work to date? Musically and lyrically I think lt can. And could it be that 'Northern Sea' is up there with their finest sonqs? lt could. Five stars? Go on then! - Dai Jeffries / R2 (Rock'n'Reel) Magazine June 2011

NetRhythms UK CD, DVD and Book Reviews / March 2011
THE GRAND SLAMBOVIANS
They’ve been called a Hillbilly-Pink Floyd and likened to Bowie, but, save for All The Dead Little People and Windmills vaguely recalling the latter circa Life On Mars, neither are comparisons that would leap to mind listening to the fourth album from Joziah Longo and his three strong troupe of fellow musicians.
Rather ringing, train-chugging opener The Trans-Slambovian BiPolar Express is what you might get had Neil Diamond fronted the Heartbreakers and played slide guitar while the gently rolling Lost Highway is an Americana Velvets and waltzing sway Who Is This Girl? might be Leonard Cohen cloned with Dylan with gypsy encampment mandolin.
This is easily the outfits rootsiest album and quite possibly their best and most immediately accessible as they turn on their foot tapping early REM pop sensibilities for the bounce along Very Happy Now, dip into Eastern billowing pyschedelia with Ravenous Way (pronounced raven as in the bird) and ride a dreamy summery ocean breeze for Up Above My Head.
Pink Floyd may have been left on the benches, but they still field the hillbilly on the title track driving folk blues with gutbucket guitar and what I’d assume was jaw harp were it not for the fact it’s not mentioned on the musician credits.
Rounding out with Northern Sea’s slow shanty love song and its tumbling folk chorus and that hint of the Incredible String Band, if this doesn’t bring them the breakout success they deserve to go with the critical acclaim for both their studio work and live shows, then there’s little hope for the world.
www.slambovia.com www.myspace.com/gandalfmurphyandtheslamboviancircusofdreams
NetRhythms UK CD, DVD and Book Reviews / Mike Davies March 2011