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Country Goss
2001

Here's a band who know their rock'n'roll and country history backwards and have managed to assimilate all these influences into something fresh and distinctive.

The Flood hail from Sydney, but listen to their music alongside that of The Jayhawks, Wilco, Calexico, Whiskeytown...the leading lights of the so called 'Americana' sound - and you'll be hard pressed to find a stylistic and attitudinal difference.

The Ballad of K.B. contains 12 songs that are the staple of the band's live shows. Give it a few spins and listen to songs like "Don't Look Back at Me", "Mary", "Hippie Johnnie Stirfry", "For Good This Time", "Bank", "It's Funny" and "The Ballad of K.B.".

Those into history will want to know that The Flood have been around for around 5 years and come together with an impressive array of credentials...

Country Music Australia
2001

The Flood are Kevin Bennett, Mark Collins (no longer with The Flood), James Gillard and Doug Bligh (no longer with The Flood) and together they make sweet music. The voice of Kevin Bennett is surely one of the natural wonders of the world! Unique, charged with emotion and feeling, Bennett's voice has to be heard to be believed and this 12 track CD (The Ballad of K.B.) is a great introduction. All of the songs, bar one, were written by Bennett. This is an independent release (probably done on the cheap) that will rival most big budget CDs by the major labels.

Entertainer Live Music
March 2000

I have never gotten into the country music scene, but this CD (The Ballad of K.B.) changed my opinion of it completely.

There is a definite rock-takes-on-country flavour in the songs on the album, with one or two songs even featuring some nice blues sounds.

The album is very catchy and includes some terrific guitar playing, amid drums and incredible male vocals, some of which sound a lot like Bryan Adams.

Standout songs on The Ballad of K.B. includes the foot-tapper, "Bank", the dance-floor bopper, "It's Funny", plus the nice and slow, "Milk".

This is definatley a CD to add to your collection.

Rated: 9/10 by Elizabeth O'Grady

Northern Daily Leader
March 2000

The Old Testement flood is a pervading influence in Western culture. Even in the rock'n'roll era Bob Dylan has soaked his career with this and other biblical images. To use The Flood as a name for a band then pays homage and identifies with a significant tradition in contemporary music.

Fortunately, the lofty ambitions of this talented five-piece line-up are not misplaced and Dylan is as good a reference point as any from which to begin a review of The Ballad of K.B.. Dylan and The Band had of course one of the most famous live albums in contemporary music, Before The Flood.

The Ballad of K.B. is a vehicle showcasing the soaring vocals, song-writing skills and guitar playing of Kevin Bennett, the amazing picking and slide guitar of Mark "Bucky" Collins and the tight rhythm of Doug Bligh and Chris Haigh (Mark, Doug and Chris are no longer with The Flood).

The Flood's frontman Bennett's previous album was called "Two of Everything In The Carpark" (just like Noah's Ark). One song from that album, Mary, is also included on "The Ballad of K.B." but it is a shame that the tracks Unconditional Love and Every Good Thing were also not carried over.

Their inclusion would have "The Ballad of K.B." being hailed as a classic. As it is, it's about as good an album that has been released for some time.

The name The Flood fits with the rootsy blues, country-rock the band plays. It's the flood of the music of Dylan's Crash on the Levee (Down in The Flood) or that might flow under the Tallahachi Bridge in Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billy Joel.

It's the flood flowing through John Fogarty's Bayou and creating Neil Young's Rust. It wets the toes of Lowell George's Little Feat. It's the flood of Ry Cooder's River Rescue and that courses through Keith Richard's veins. It's the flood infusing the wordplay of John Hiatt, John Prine or Lyall Lovett, or a Tom Springfield ballad. It's also the flood in the creeks of the Pilliga Scrub of the north-west were Bennett grew up.
The album starts with Don't Look Back at Me, the song that had the band nominated as a finalist in the CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia for best vocal group or duo.

The title also recalls the biblical story of Lot's wife.The Flood's Don't Look Back starts off by presenting the stories of the gospels as the ultimate road movie.

"Jesus came, he rode the sun, with a highway song for everyone to sing. Said don't look back at me." The song then transfers to a personal mode and acts as an introduction before the album sweeps through to the coda of the title track, The Ballad of K.B.

Don't Look Back sets a brilliant standard of lyricism that continues throughout, and, yes the flood eventually comes, "When the rain came..."

The only non-Bennett song on the album is the touching Tear Stained Eye, which merely acts to reinforce Bennett's extraordinary vocals. If you need any further evidence of this, then catch the band live and track down the old Chasin The Train albums or get a copy of The Stetsons' Their most successful record...ever! on which Bennett sings the classics The Dark Side of the Street and She Thinks I Still Care and Collins displays his wonderful skills.

When The Flood played in Tamworth during the recent Country Music Festival it was interesting to note how well their songs stood up against the cover versions they performed.

Only a Dylan classic You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, John Prine's Angel From Montgomery and the Faulkneresque Ode to Billy Joel could be considered superior.

If you are interested in the Pilliga Scrub meets the lower 40-acre of Ode to Billy Joel via Lyall Lovett's Texas or Sydney meets Randy Newman's Baltimore then this is the album for you.

If you like great singing and great playing of intelligent songs, thenthis is the album for you.

Now, if only The Flood would put out a live album featuring all the classics in their repertoire.

I'd say amen.

The Courier-Mail
August 1999

....here's another to add to the list, Australian band The Flood and their debut album, The Ballad of K.B.

The sound is built around the songs of Kevin Bennett and his warm, smoky singing voice, and like many country-meets-roots rock bands, would have as much appeal in the city as the bush.

Adding to the mix is the tremendous guitar and banjo playing of Mark Collins (no longer with The Flood), who provides some of the tastiest slide guitar this side of J.J. Cale on "Sunshine".

It is a pity there's no place for something like this on urban commercial radio in Australia, although surely a song like "For Good This Time" would be more refreshing than another flogged-to-death Eagles oldie.....

Rolling Stone
June 1999
by Jeff Apter

Urban cowboys explore Dingoes country

Masterly country-blues combo The Flood have a major identity crisis. They're better known in Tamworth than in centres urban, but their true grit is a world away from the land of akubras and drizabones. They're more John Foggerty than John Williamson, if you get my drift. And while The Ballad of K.B. may have been produced for next to nothing, it's dotted with million-dollar tunes.

The lead off track, "Don't Look Back at Me" sets the tone: it's marked by deadley harmonies, frontman Kevin Bennett's stinging guitar and soul-deep vocals. This woebegone, blues-stained style then seeps into such tales of lovers and losers as "For Good This Time" and "Mary", making The Ballad of K.B. more the soundtrack for life-scarred urbanites than line-dancing cowpokes.