Original members Carmine Appice (drums; see photo), Jim McCarty (guitar) and Tim Bogert (bass) are now fronted by former Savoy Brown singer Jimmy Kunes (Rusty Day died in 1982). The music of Cactus on \"V\" is rife with blues riffs, soulful melodic invention, kick-ass ax soloing and the kind of rhythm section interplay only bass/drum tandems that have decades-long mental telepathy can ever hope to achieve.

Appice and Bogert have recorded and performed together in Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Beck/Bogert/Appice and numerous other high-profile projects. According to the label\'s press release:

\"V\" is an hour solid with extended vamping, inspired soulfulness and down-to-the-bone white-boy blues rock that squeezes every last ounce of grit from the fusion of two great musics. Surprising in its vitality, verve and sheer balls, Kunes sounds better than ever, singing with a lusty vibrato; McCarty sounds like he\'s back again in Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels spinning out the jump-blues for ecstatic Detroit dancers; Bogert is as dangerously over-the-top as ever, never content to just supply the bottom line; and Carmine is Carmine, one of the all-time greats.

The first four albums of Cactus from 1970 to 1972 were brash, energetic and filled with the kind of zeal characterized only by youth itself.