"Full of great Americana-indie tracks, Needless Road is a stellar debut album" americana-UK
"In the mellifluous manner of a Grampian Gene Clark throughout, offering a musical concoction that is expertly mixed" RnR Magazine
"A fine collection of Caledonian Americana" Scottish Daily Express
Needless Road is the debut solo album from Scottish singer-songwriter Son of the Chief, better known as Mackie Mackintosh one third of critically acclaimed power-pop band Aerial.
Reinvigorated by Aerial’s long awaited recent return to making music but finding himself at another personal crossroads, Mackintosh decided to begin working on a new project and soon found inspiration in the diaries he had kept whilst travelling around North America in 2009. Before long a body of new material emerged, incorporating a more roots based sound and featuring the stories and imagery of people and places he’d encountered along the way.
So with a new moniker in place and an ensemble cast of talented musicians in tow, Son of the Chief headed into The Motor Museum studio in Liverpool to lay the foundations that would be completed at Lightship95 studios in London. Production and mixing duties for the record were again handled by Ben Phillips (Peter Green, Newton Faulkner, Slaves, Aerial).
With clear influence from Beat Generation writers, Country music narratives and the emotional core of singer-songwriter confessionals, Needless Road not only tells the story of its two main protagonists but it tells the story of every individual, at times lost and looking for direction in this world. And sometimes it’s the wrong turns that can lead to the right destination.