TRACER, Virgil And The Accelerators @Wolverhampton Slade Rooms 26/9/12

Impossibly young they might be, but Virgil And The Accelerators understand blues-rock.

The Midlands based trio – the McMahon brothers Virgil and Gabriel and drummer Jack Alexander – have been one of the most hard working bands in Britain for a couple of years now, playing everywhere and with everyone they can.

As a result of this they give an assured performance that belies their tender years. “Backstabber” is perhaps the most accessible moment, but really there is nothing bad here. A couple of the songs are strung out into jams, and the band don’t bother to hide their Hendrix fixation, playing Jimi’s “The Storm” before the end.

Things in the Tracer camp ostensibly look pretty good. Stellar album “The Distance Between Us” has been doing impressive business and this is their second – and by far the biggest – headline run of the UK in 2012.

However, just before the European tour kicked off founder member Leigh Brown decided that enough was enough. His brother Michael (vocals and guitar) and drummer Andre Brown just got on with it, though, and have recruited bass man Pat Saracino as Leigh’s replacement.

If Saracino has, as Brown puts it in response to a request for “Push” “only learnt 12 songs, so we can’t play that one” then his short tenure in the band hasn’t unduly affected the trio.

One of the few Aussie rock bands that don’t sound like AC/DC, Tracer take their cues from bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. It would be wrong, too to suggest that there were not elements of fellow Aussie’s Powderfinger in their sound – this is particularly evident in “Voice In The Rain”, which acts as a change of pace tonight roughly halfway through the just over an hour long set.

Most of tonight is drawn from “….Between” with the title track, “Devils Ride” and straight ahead rocker “The Bitch” sounding heavier live, with Brown’s excellent guitar work shining throughout.

If anyone doubted the boys’ metal heart then “Walk On” morphs into “War Pigs” pretty seamlessly, before they encore with the single “Too Much” which in years gone by might have bothered the upper echelons of the top 40.

Line-up setbacks notwithstanding, Tracer might just be on the cusp of something big. They are soon to go record album number three with uber-producer Kevin Shirley (Maiden, BCC and just about everyone else). In old school rock circles album number three used to break a band, and as there is something distinctly retro about Tracer and the way they have built a fan base on the road, who knows? It might just be their “Slippery When Wet.”