Prolific musician and poet, Steve Logan, is ready to release his fifth album, Shaking Hands with the Devil, a stunningly accomplished album on which his deftness with language is matched by a musical biology which feeds deeply on the works of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Nick Cave, as well as the primal rock riffs of Led Zeppelin and Free. Steve’s songs are barbed arrows straight into the soul of anyone who truly admires the great rock troubadours, utterly immersive narratives with an ever-tumbling tide of melodies and rhythms which put him at the top of his game.

Growing up in Pontymister, South-East Wales, Steve Logan’s journey has taken him from the socialist close-knit community which saw Nye Bevan suitably inspired to found the NHS, to the misery and loneliness of boarding school and disastrous A-level results, through to an intellectual rebirth and continued success in the world of academe in Cambridge. Steve’s love of rock music went underground until he heard Bob Dylan’s Street Legal, an album which helped to spark his deep love for the combination of undiluted poetry and rock music, seen not only his ballads but throughout his tracks. He has continued to write music and lyrics daily, managing to release an album a year for the last five years, as well as regular live dates, including the well-established Cambridge Rock Festival. Shaking Hands with the Devil sees Steve exploring Mankind’s uneasy relationship with evil and that although we are morally obliged to behave in a ‘good’ way, the excitement and creativity which transgression inspires has a role in all areas of the Arts, from Blake to Milton to Robert Johnson and beyond. The Devil may have the best tunes but Steve has gratefully borrowed twelve of them on this album.

Stand-out tracks include Tularosa, a nine-minute epic of Welsh Western which evokes thoughts of Young’s Cortez the Killer; Selfish Love, the poppier side of Steve’s world which explores one of his favourite haunts, Brighton and the title track, planting the listener in the dead-centre of the crossroads where God and the Devil meet. Though deeply personal, Shaking Hands with the Devil is an open invitation to meet a songwriter committed to his craft and staying true to his ideals, spirituality and influences, a towering achievement.