Quickies - Jack White, Takeaway Thieves, and Snowblind

Today's round-up brings together three different versions of rock'n'roll, from the famed Jack White to up'n'comers Takeaway Thieves and Ireland's "progressive metallers" Snowblind.

Jack White – No Name
 
I can’t say I’m a devoted Jack White fan.  Yeah, I’ve got some albums by The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, and I admire his determination to do the unexpected and generally fuck things up to keep his audience on their toes.  But he also seems too bleedin’ clever by half at times, and his tendencies towards squawking, whiny vocals and clatter’n’bash percussion can become grating.
But still, I like this – quite a lot in fact.  It took me a while to get round to buying No Name, and to give it a proper listen, but it was worth it.
Take something like ‘Bless Yourself’, fr’instance, which marries a lead-heavy, jabbing, thudding

Shape-shifting chameleon Jack White

riff to a very Whitean herky-jerky rhythm and a more or less rapped vocal, packing plenty into three minutes. Deciphering White’s lyrics amid the maelstrom isn’t always easy, but he’s no cliché merchant, as this confrontational ‘sermon’ suggests with lines like “If god’s too busy then I’ll bless myself”.  And a little later he’s returning to religious imagery with ‘Archibishop Harold Holmes’, a preaching, testifying monologue by the eponymous pontiff, on which a churning ‘Immigrant Song’-like riff rides a rap undercurrent, supplemented by a wiry, Sixties-sounding staircase of a guitar theme.
White is the kinda guy with an encyclopaedic musical memory, and on No Name there are lots of can’t-quite-put-your-finger on it glimmerings of old songs and artists.  Are these inadvertent, or is he teasing us, like a fly fisherman casting for trout?  Cop an earful of ‘Terminal Archenemy Endling’ for example, on which spooky guitar notes lead to a melody that nods heavily towards Zeppelin’s ‘That’s The Way’, but brooding rather than sweet and pastoral.  Oh yeah, and the subsequent surging guitar riff sounds pretty Zep-like too.
Whatever, White has bashed out some cracking tunes here. ‘That’s How I’m Feeling’ flips from verses with a darkly post-punk feel to a chorus like a demolition ball, to an intriguing electronica-like guitar break.  ‘Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)’ is bright and catchy with its stop-start riff of jaggedly resounding chords.  On ‘Underground’ he mashes up Resonator-slide Delta-style blues with perky pop reminiscent of – what, Mungo Jerry maybe?  Okay, maybe not.  But ‘Morning At Midnight’ is a great garage-rock outing, with its jabbing, stabbing riff, quiet/loud dynamics, catchy hook, and scratchy, sparky bridge – as Jack himself proclaims, “Oh yeah!”.  These are my highlights, but you may find your own among the 13 tracks, all delivered with energy and conviction.
Jack White is a chameleon, a shape-shifter, and a moving target.  But No Name, an album he chucked out with barely a whisper of PR, sounds like the work of a guy who woke up one morning from a fever dream of rock’n’roll, hit the studio, and tried to get it all down before it escaped.
 
No Name is out now on Third Man Records.
 
 
Takeaway Thieves – Diamond Point
 
I bought Diamond Point after tripping over the opening track (and single) ‘Kickin’ My Heart Around’ on YouToob, a belter of a glam-rock infused tune if ever I heard one.  It’s a raucous affair with a ringing riff, rasping vocals from Peter McLoughlin, a stonking chorus teeming with gang vocals on the title line, and a neat guitar solo from Ben Gibson that may not be especially original but fits the bill perfectly.

Takeaway Thieves get noisy and sweaty

Pic by Cyclops Gig Photos

The Thieves aren’t wedded to this glam’n’garage rock vibe across the whole of Diamond Point, but they do give it another shot with the rattling rock’n’roll of ‘True Story’, which comes with a glorious turbocharged riff, a cracker of a melody and hook, and more of those all-hands-on-deck backing vocals, plus spot on spasms of piercing, trilling lead guitar.  The following ‘Gotta Get Back’ isn’t in exactly the same space but still rocks like a bastard, kicking off with a snapping snare drum and bouncing riff, to go with McLoughlin’s in-yer-face vocals, enthusiastic grunts of “Yeah – ugh!” on the side, and good dynamics in the bridge.
‘What Do You Want’ is Def Leppard-style anthemic, sorta, with rock steady bass’n’drums from Adam Hall and Max Yates, electro-static riffs to stick your hair on end, and another tasteful bridge.  They show a subtler touch with vocal harmonies here, and there are some smart guitar harmonies too, from Gibson and his guitar buddy Neil Hunter, adding up to three minutes and 11 seconds of sharp and snazzy melodic hard rock.
Elsewhere, straight up hard rock is pretty much their go-to place, and if it doesn’t quite have the same joie de vivre, they still make a decent fist of it.  ‘I’ll Be Waiting For You’ has a pummelling riff, and rat-a-tat vocals from McLoughlin.  ‘Crazy Horse’ is crunching stuff, with a jagged, slaloming riff, racing bass and whomping drums, and wailing vocals from McLoughlin, to which Gibson adds a zinging guitar break.  ‘Sundance’ is built on a staccato riff and some supple bass from Hall, and the chorus brings a bit of a glam-edged spark culminating in some Slade-worthy crashing chords. They cool things off nicely on the bridge too, with some distorted vocals, before another mint-fresh, noodle-free solo from Gibson.
‘Gypsy’ is grinding and gutsy, but perhaps more predictable, though with the odd feisty line like “I’ve stained the carpets everywhere I’ve been”.  They also have a bash at slowing things down with ‘Find My Way Home’, which gets more interesting as they rev it up a bit, and the more ambitious closer ‘Suicide 66’, with its pseudo-Arabic epic moments, though it doesn’t really feel like their sweet spot.
Takeaway Thieves probably won’t be the next big thing, but I reckon they’d be just the job for a noisy, sweaty rock’n’roll gig.  Good luck to ‘em.
 
Diamond Point is out now on Coffee’N’Mint Records, and can be ordered here.
 
 
Snowblind – Shapes In The Trees EP
 
Safe to say this 5 track EP by Irish trio Snowblind ain’t yer typical Blues Enthused review fare.  But I’m covering it because it’s such a headscratcher.  There are some things I really like on Shapes In The Trees, and some things I really don’t – often in the same song.
Partly this is a generational thing.  See, I was a heavy metal kid back in the mists of time, but never got into speed metal, thrash metal, doom metal or anything else that’s long on stürm und drang and short on wit.  Whereas Snowblind are young enough to be very much au fait with the shouty, thud and blunder oeuvre of the likes of, say, Mastodon.  But here’s the thing – Snowblind still come up with elements that appeal to an old git like me.
So let’s consider the eight minute plus opener ‘Shapes In The Trees’.  It kicks off with twisting, spinning guitar lines from Sean Boland, interleaved with bobbing and weaving bass from Ian Mckeon and drumming from Jake McCarthy that’s thunderous to be sure, but also imaginative.

Snowblind - lumberjacks in their spare time, and they're okay

Before long though Mckeon, who I gather undertakes most of the vocal duties, is bawling, snarling and yelping in the throatiest of fashions, and they’re resorting to some pneumatic drill riffing that makes my shoulders sag.  Then after a brief quiet section and some hammer-on-anvil chords Boland embarks on an earcatching, slithering solo admirably and flexibly backed up by the rhythm boys, an approach they laterreprise (after a bit more caterwauling) to create some dazzling patterns.  And right at the end Mckeon – I assume it’s still him – reveals that he can in, in fact, damn well sing.  In these moments of imagination I get the feeling these boys have spent a lot of time listening intently to Rush, for which I applaud them heartily.
And so it goes on.  I don’t go a bundle on the stalking vibe that opens ‘Barrow-wight’, and though the backing gets interestingly spiky as they pick up the pace, Mckeon is back in sinew-straining vocal mode – until suddenly gliding into a swoopingly melodic passage.  Boland drops in an elegant courtly guitar break that could have come from Jethro Tull or Wishbone Ash.  Then after a bit of unnecessary pounding they produce an impressively strident, discordant segment, topped off with soaring, tuneful vocals.
The shortest song here, ‘Primal Spy’, features scurrying, prickly guitar and rapid fire drums, producing a taut and urgent vibe accompanying another bout of quality vocals, and a genuinely hooky chorus.  Eventually it evolves into a different animal, finding deeper, more more gears while McCarthy hammers along like his life depends on it, until they round it off neatly.
Closing track ‘Go Forth’ saddles up with some agonised vocals and a strained melody, before they break out into a headlong rush of a riff, Mckeon more or less chanting along with it in some kind of Hades-bound mantra.  But then they dive into another excellent bridge, well-paced and melodic, with Boland making good use of chorus-type effects, for a breather before another breathless riff over which Boland lays out more excellent guitar work, with crackling tension between his lead lines and the urgent riffing.  Intricate, jack-knifing stuff likes this reminds me of Diamond Head, those head-spinning riff meisters of yore.  Which is nice.
Of course, I’m not really the audience for Snowblind.  But this once-upon-a-time wearer of a badge-adorned denim jacket says they should dial up McCarthy and Mckeon’s capacity for heavy but sinuous rhythm work as the backdrop for Boland’s spiralling, dynamic guitar work, and stick to gen-yoo-wine singing.  That way lies a seriously potent force.  Honest injun.
 
Shapes In The Trees is out now and can be ordered here.

MC5 - Heavy Lifting

You gotta laugh at the fact Heavy Lifting is tagged as ‘Explicit’.  That advice seems superfluous, when MC5’s most famous moment was arguably when singer Rob Tyner bawled “Kick Out The Jams, motherfuckers!” on their 1969 live album.  Whaddya expect – a cocktail party?
Of course, the MC5 that recorded Heavy Lifting was very different from the 1969 line-up, the original members reduced to just guitarist Wayne Kramer and (on a couple of tracks) drummer Dennis Thompson.  And sadly both of them died earlier this year before the album was released, as did manager, guru and rebel John Sinclair.  So a good deal of the heavy lifting in the making of this recorded involved big-hitting guest musos like Tom Morello, Slash, Don Was (who supplied much of the bass playing) and many more, under the supervision of producer Bob Ezrin.

Wayne Kramer flies the flag for MC5

But the spirit of the original Motor City demons is alive and well when ‘Heavy Lifting’ itself limbers up with a helter-skeltering riff and ooh-ing harmonies, before erupting out of the starting gate with a crunching riff reinforced by trampolining bass.  The vocal – I’m guessing courtesy of Brad Brooks, Kramer’s co-writer across most of the 13 tracks – is an aggressive, near-ranting rap, and the guitar break is a skewering thrust.  They follow that up with ‘Barbarians At The Gate’, a hot-rails-to-hell tirade directed at the Trump-obsessed January 6 riots.  It’s all clattering drums, high octane guitars and throaty hollering, with a fierce chorus boosted by a neck-snapping ‘Problem Child’-like riff, and concludes with a Catherine Wheel showdown of sparks-flying guitar and harp.
There’s more of this kinda thing further down the line, with the (un)steady as she goes lurching groove of  ‘Black Boots’.  But Kramer and co also dig some different grooves along the way to avoid getting in a rut. ‘Change, No Change’ marries booming, blooping bass to falsetto-ish vocals, with jagged guitar/drums lightning strikes, in an off kilter slow funk groove that could be the work of Beck – and I don’t mean Jeff.  As if to show that’s no fluke, ‘I Am The Fun (Phoney)’ is another deep, behind-the-beat groove, replete with squeaking, blinking, bleeping guitar intrusions, and a chorus that puts me in mind of Parliament’s ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)’.  Hell, they even take Edwin Starr’s ‘Twenty-Five Miles’ Motown hit and rock it up with heavy duty guitars welded to its chunky, funky undercurrent.
There are more echoes of Beck on the loping ‘Blessed Release’, with its edgy, semi-slurring vocals and gritty undercurrent of stuttering guitar over a steady beat and bursts of shaker, and the closing ‘Hit It Hard’ edges closer to the realm of Prince with its loose-limbed guitar, bass’n’drums bump’n’grind, enhanced by horns and squawking female backing vocals, all coming together in a chant-along chorus and pulling in an elasticated bass break and searing sax from Joe Berry en route to the closing line of “When it comes to love baby, we’re all equal here”.
But there’s also a run of tracks that seem less intense, starting with the strutting ‘Because Of Your Car’, which edges towards the twisted-relationship territory of Alice Cooper, but with keening, double-tracked vocals and infected with a slinky Isaac Hayes soul groove.  Then ‘Boys Who Play With Matches’, ‘Blind Eye’ and ‘Can’t Be Found’ – the latter pair featuring Thompson on drums - seem like throwbacks to the garage rock origins of the original MC5.  If these power-popping tunes came from a different artist I dare say I’d like ‘em big time, but here the rough edges have been sanded down just a bit too much to fit – though ‘Can’t Be Found’, with its turbo-charged chorus and guitar solo, eventually ramps up the desired energy.
But I reckon the last word has to go to ‘The Edge Of The Switchblade’, a fist-pumping tribute to the 5’s heyday blasts in with a yelled ‘Alright!’ and whips up a storm of hard-rocking rambunction.  It’s an irresistible, guitar-squalling (Slash takes a bow here), hey-hey-hey-ing call to arms, proclaiming that “On the cutting edge you might get cut, that’s the chance you have to take”.
Wayne Kramer and his buddies were right on the cutting edge back in the day, and did indeed get cut.  It’s debatable whether Heavy Lifting is really and truly an MC5 album, when band members Rob Tyner, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith and bassist Michael Davis are long gone.  But I tell you what, it’s a pretty shit hot homage to the band’s memory.

Heavy Lifting is out now on earMUSIC.

Tab Benoit - I Hear Thunder

Tab Benoit has been around a while – he released his first album in 1993.  He’s also a winner of multiple Blues Music Awards.  But I Hear Thunder is his first new solo release since 2011’s Medicine, an album I thoroughly enjoyed when I picked up on it a few years later.  Still, it may have been a damn long time between drinks, as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina, but Benoit pours a good measure.
People talk about artists being a ‘triple threat’, and Tab Benoit definitely deserves the tag.  He’s a characterful singer, a great guitar player, and writes strong songs with thoughtful lyrics, as this album demonstrates with ease and charm.

Tab Benoit, spotlight kid

Pic by John Frank Photography

‘I Hear Thunder’ itself gets things moving in a brooding fashion suggestive of an approaching storm, combining a riff that sounds like a slowed down second cousin of ‘Stormbringer’ with a groaning vocal that carries a hint of anxiety.  There’s imaginative, patient soloing too, and a daring drop in even more restrained mode to add to the tension.  And having laid down that solid marker, Benoit proceeds to cover plenty bases across the remaining nine tracks.
As a Louisiana native, he does a good job of preserving Tony Joe White’s swampy legacy.  On ‘Watching The Gators Roll In’ he does it in uber-relaxed, smilingly funky fashion, snagging the ear with a coupla nifty little hooks and evocative lyrics that build on the title.  Later on ‘Why, Why’ is slowish and contemplative, but also fuzzy, behind the beat, spare and scratchy, in a way that makes it more than the sum of its parts. And the closing ‘Bayou Man’ pulses with muscular energy as Benoit sings about rescuing a girl from the bayou elements. But it’s also a metaphor for a man confident he can give a woman what she wants: “What you need sugar, is for a bayou man like me to come along – and save you.”  And it comes with a real cork-popping solo.
Benoit can take things right down too.  ‘Still Gray’ is a superb, Americana-crossover slowie on which a man looking at a faded picture can still say “In my mind, I see the colours”, the plangent vocal evoking the sense of memory to good effect, accompanied by an undercurrent of buzzing guitar notes.  There a lyrical, gentle guitar solo too, well suited to the patient delivery.  Later on ‘Overdue’ is a slow blues, a ballad, a love song – take your pick – with a shimmering guitar intro, and a soulful vocal that’s beautifully sung.
Other songs develop different grooves.  ‘The Ghost Of Gatemouth Brown’ is a sprightly take on a Bo Diddley vibe, with a quasi-shave an’ a haircut rhythm and long-time pal Anders Osborne being urged to take a first, bright’n’breezy solo, before Benoit picks up the baton in steelier, edgier fashion.  ‘Inner Child’ is slowish and moody, with a rumbling, thorny riff, and impactful turnarounds rattling with drum rolls and lively, ringing chords, with a lift into the confident chorus: “What I know is what it takes to make you smile, just enough to see the glow of your inner child”.
‘Little Queenie’ is a stuttering, upbeat bop about a guy who everyone says is out of his league next to the local beauty, with sparky, witty soloing.  Whether he keeps his girl is unclear, but you want him to stay lucky.  The following ‘I’m A Write That Down’ is an offbeat and twitching promise to an irritating acquaintance that their “Your dirty little secret’s gonna get you yet”, over an intriguing, strolling riff and a nagging bass line, enhanced by a pair of spiky then bristling solos.
The thing about Tab Benoit is that he’s sui generis, hors catégorie, a real one-off.  He can get bluesy, swampy, funky, and even country if he wants to, and he does it all effortlessly and with style.  The Bayou Man is one cool cat.
 
I Hear Thunder is out now on Whiskey Bayou Records.

The Courettes - The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes

Hey-ho, let’s go!  Where, you ask?  Back in time my friends, with the raucously retro sound of The Courettes, that’s where!
Danish-Brazilian couple Flavia and Martin Couri love the sounds of the Sixties, and they ain’t afraid to show it on their latest album The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes.  It’s an honest hommage, but they bring their own energy, slashes of darkness, and knowing nudge and wink to the songs and sounds that they generate.  It’s fun fun fun folks, it's mono 7 incher vibes to get your tush moving, and then you can catch all the clever musical allusions afterwards.
So whaddya get in this time travelling sound machine?
Whomping backbeats?  Check! Martin Couri whacks out plenty of these, starting with the

Martin and Flavia Couri - monochrome and marvellous

Pic by Soren Solkær

opening track ‘You Woo Me’, with its fairground organ, Flavia’s slinky vocal, and gloriously tumbling last line to its verses.  He goes all Spector with the rhythm on ‘Wall Of Pain’, which opens with dreamy, slurring string-like sounds then gets tied together by a bass/guitar line that owes quite a few bucks to The Four Tops’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ (aka ‘Sugar Pie Honey Bunch’).  There’s a fetching tambourine-led boom-cha-cha moment too, for extra entertainment.
You want a Wall Of Sound smacking you around the ears?  Goddamn it, you got it!  Have a listen to ‘Keep Dancing’, which wraps string sounds and twinkling guitar around another stomping beat, while they splash copious amounts of reverb everywhere.  The verses come with a sweet and yearning vocal from Flavia, but meld into a defiant chorus of “I’ll keep dancing on my own, I feel so much better now you’re dead and gone”, with a terrific hook, “hey hey” interjections from Martin, and reinforcements in the shape of tubular bells.  Yes, tubular bells!  And those chimes crop up on ‘Don’t Want You Back’ too, which opens with an echoing vocal over a throbbing beat and little else, till the chorus crashes in with a three chord descending riff.  There’s a catchy ooh-la-la doo-wopping segment too, and a catchy coda to boot.
You like a bit of cheesy girl group spoken narration?  There’s some of that on ‘Wall Of Pain’ too, and on ‘Boom Boom Boom’, a tribute to the charms of a drummer, featuring the lines “Charlie was my darling from Day One, When he’s sitting at this drums I’m under his thumb”.  Which means, as Flavia tells us in Shangri-Las mode, that some fella called Richard is getting his ring back.  The verses are very Shangri-Las Sixties pop too, simple and jangling, but the “My heart goes boom boom boom boom out of my chest” hook hints at less innocence.
And speaking of less innocent, they can crank things up into garage rock territory too.  ‘Here I Come’ is agitated and all action in a way that recalls Blondie – “I’m gonna git ya, git ya, git ya some day” sings Flavia – as they reached back for the rough and tumble of 60s stuff likes The Nerves’ ‘Hanging On The Telephone’.  Flavia’s guitar buzzes through the slam dunk riff to the punchy chorus, and she adds a razor-edged solo just to keep you on your toes.  ‘Better Without You’ is a breathless gallop too, that back beat kicking your ass while Ms Couri spits out a snarky lyric en route to the irresistible descending chorus.  It’s got a whiff of the Yardbirds in post-Clapton mode about, like ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged onto a sweaty dance floor.
I could go on, and tell you about the snappy, hip-wiggling ‘SHAKE!’, or the Motown-ish ‘Stop! Doing That’, with its candy chorus, handclaps, and jangling Beach Boys guitar, or . . . ah, you get the picture.
The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes ain’t profound and it ain’t perfect. But it’s affectionate and smart and clever, and delivered with bratty chutzpah and exotic looking guitars.  Get it while it's hot!
 
The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes is out now on Damaged Goods Records, and can be ordered here.

Ronnie Baker Brooks - Blues In My DNA

Albums from Chicago bluesman Ronnie Baker Brooks don’t come along every year – his last release was 2017’s Times Have Changed, and a hell of lot of water has flowed under the world’s bridges since then.  This seems like a pity, because his personal mix of blues, funk and soul has strong roots, but isn’t stuck in the past.
Our Ronnie is, in case you didn’t know, the son of the late Chicago blues icon Lonnie Brooks, hence the title of Blues In My DNA. And Dad pops up in the brief snippet ‘Lonnie’s Blessing’, with the exhortation “Keep these blues alive!” ahead of the title track. ‘Blues In My DNA’ combines a cool, fuzzy riff with a dragging rhythm and reflective sprechgesang vocals from Brooks, as he lays out his inheritance.  It’s not just about his blues legacy from Lonnie, but the
broader story of a troubled neighbourhood, the struggles of his upbringing, and the way blues “the bad into a positive”.  And his gritty soloing captures the mood too, leaning into a few discordant notes along the way.

Ronnie Baker Brooks - the Chicago mojo still works

Pic by Jim Summeria

The most accessible track here is ‘Instant Gratification’, which opens with punchy chorus and a chunky riff that carries more than a hint of ‘Satisfaction’ and is ramped up later on. There’s stop-time riffing on the verses and plenty of guitar sizzle on a couple of solos.
But Baker also does a couple of soulful turns on ‘My Love Will Make You Do Right’ and ‘All True Man’.  His voice may not quite have a caramel sweetness on these, but it’s suitably light for the smooth Robert Cray-like stylings of the former, which may be a tad overlong but comes with a neat, melody-chasing solo.  ‘All True Man’ also has some seductive Cray leanings, but is a tougher funk strut with stinging guitar punctuation.  It’s brightened by piano embroidery around the margins from Rick Steff (as most of the tracks are), and features a piercing, clear-toned solo with distinct changes of pace.
Baker’s command of funkiness is also evident on the opener ‘I’m Feeling You’, with it’s brightly bouncing riff, pleasing melody and scattergun, zesty guitar licks.  There’s a slinky drop into a bass-led bridge, then with a grunted “Unhh” Baker sets off on a sharp guitar break. Then as the end approaches they punch up the backing to drive home an upbeat second solo.
Baker turns his hand to classic blues stylings too.  The slow and soulful ‘Accept My Love’ may not be anything exceptional, even if it’s nicely put together with its subtle backing that weaves in restrained moaning horns and strokes of Hammond organ.  But the slow blues of ‘Stuck On Stupid’ - an old cut he's chosen to reprise - is much stronger, opening with evocative lead guitar narration over ambling bass from Dave Smith and simple piano chords.  It’s about a guy trailing around after a woman who treats him like dirt, natch, and Baker captures the sense of resignation with a yearning vocal and a convincing, plaintive guitar soloing.
‘Robbing Peter To Pay Paul’ is a classic blues tale of being on your uppers, but it bumps along pleasingly, and Baker keeps the hoary old images fresh with a well delivered vocal interspersed with nippy guitar licks.  His nifty solo has a deft, light touch, and there’s a nice shift into a harmony-led conclusion.  And the closing ‘My Boo’ is a cheerful canter that takes a Wolf-ish, ‘Howlin’ For My Darlin’ type riff and lifts it into a sunnier, zippier mode, giving a fresh twist to a classic Chicago vibe.
Blues In My DNA isn’t a ground-breaking album.  But with a crystal clear production from Jim Gaines, it demonstrates that Ronnie Baker Brooks, with his effortless vocals and ability to make sparks fly from his fingertips, can continue to get the mojo working with traditional Chicago blues sounds.
 
Blues In My DNA is released on 11 October by Alligator Records.

JD Simo and Luther Dickinson - Do The Rump!

If your tastes are strictly of the blues-rock variety á la Bonamassa or Kenny Wayne Shepherd, or maybe straight up Chicago blues, then I suggest you look away now.  Do The Rump! ain’t that kinda thang.
What we have here is blues mavericks JD Simo and Luther Dickinson getting together with Simo’s drummer pal Adam Abarashoff to rehash a selection of deep blue classics in singular fashion.  Seems they basically chucked some appealing song titles in the air, found a groove or rhythm to start the engines, then riffed and wriggled around it on the fly while the tapes were rolling. The result is a magnetic, immersive journey to the centre of . . . somewhere pretty damn trippy.

Abarashoff, Simo & Dickens - as they don't call themselves

Pic by Zac Childs

To be fair, they ease you into it with the swampy strut of opening track ‘Street People’.  But by the denouement of the nearly 10-minute closer ‘Peaches’ they’re off the main drag into an Electric Ladyland of asymmetric, zig-zagging disassociation, for want of a better description.
‘Street People’ kicks off with buzzing guitar from Simo, followed by a slightly off-kilter rhythm from Abarashoff that Dickinson joins with some deliciously dirty, guttural bass to create a jagged, swampy groove. Simo’s slide guitar then slurs around an ear-catching line for a moment before his vocals make a drawling entrance.  Dickinson peels off into a different bass riff, over which Simo ducks and dives into a squawking, squeaking solo, and they’re off and running.
JJ Cale’s ‘Right Down There’ is also patient but buoyant, but with its repeated offbeat rhythm  low swooning guitar, and Simo groaning away at the simple lyric before adding a slinky, slithering slide break, it's a taken on Cale fit to give Clapton kittens.

From there on though, things start to follow a more trance-like path.  Dickinson takes over on lead guitar and vocals for ‘Lonesome Road’, calmly harmonising with himself while Simo’s bass bumps around deep below.  They surface on a lighter groove, Luther orbiting around it with a scratching, grinding, bleeping solo like a satellite transmission gone wonky.  Then ‘Come And Go With Me’ is their first outing in two-guitar-no-bass mode, the two guitars winding in and out of each other while Simo hollers the minimalist “Yeaahh, come on baby!” lyrics, the ghost of Hendrix flitting in and out of earshot here and there.
John Lee Hooker’s ‘Serves Me Right To Suffer’ opens with a stuttering rhythm and expressively plonking bass, while Simo’s guitar picks and pecks away like a bird chasing a worm.  Simo’s drawling vocal is very Hooker-like, but what really makes the track stand out is the way the guitar work mutates into sub-Saharan blues shapes, acquiring a sparkling, twinkling, twirling character over Abarashoff's relentless drum pattern.
The rhythm on ‘Do The Rump Louise’ is another wacko animal, like a three-legged horse trying to break into a trot.  A mash-up of Junior Kimbrough’s ‘Do The Rump’ and Simo channelling the lyrics of Fred McDowell’s ‘Louise’, it’s all stop-start stuttering guitars welded to a North Mississippi Hill Country groove, until Simo devolves into an impressionistic, volume knob-twiddling solo, followed by Dickinson embarking on another screeching, clanking excursion. ‘Come On’ follows, the only original fare on the album, and a perky little vignette spun off from ‘Come And Go With Me’ that's a palate cleanser before the climax of ‘Peaches’.
‘Peaches’ is an RL Burnside song that Dickinson and brother Cody tackled with North Mississippi Allstars on their album Up And Rolling.  That NMA reading was a bright and sassy duet between Dickinson and Shardé Thomas, but this is a not-quite-lazy, loping creature that sounds like a spliff was sparked in the break beforehand (and not the first one of these sessions, perhaps).  It's a low slung, two-guitar affair, with a nagging riff and drum pattern as backing for Dickinson’s languid vocal.  Then in their own good time the guitars start conversing, trading discordant flourishes and jazzy, flickering forays, before plunging into that final disintegrating coda.
There’s a sense in which a blow-by-blow account of proceedings like this is beside the point, of course.  Do The Rump! isn’t just a collection of songs.  It’s a spider’s web, spun out of country blues and more exotic ingredients, to capture the listener and cocoon them in the vibe.  Turn on and tune in, hipsters!
 
Do The Rump! is out now on Forty Below Records.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Dirt On My Diamonds Vol 2

I can’t say I’m an assiduous follower of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, but the opening couple of tracks on Dirt On My Diamonds Vol 2 certainly emulate the up to date kinda sounds that were often the highlights of last year’s Volume 1.
‘I Got A Woman’ features an ear-catching fuzzed up riff, with horn reinforcements, over a four-on-the-floor beat.  What’s more, it’s a more than decent tune with a strong, catchy hook, and Shepherd’s fizzing solo is icing on what’s already a tasty cake.  The good grooves here are then carried over into ‘The Middle’, which has a jabbing melody to go with some sharp lyrics about partisan politics, and Noah Hunt’s lead vocal given some chanted backing. Shepherd’s wah-wah pedal gets an outing, and there more horns, but what I really like is the overall impression of

Kenny Wayne Shepherd - "Did somebody say lunch?"

Pic by Mark Seliger

fresh-sounding backing with neat little twists and flourishes.  Producer Marshall Altman is also credited with “programming”, and maybe that’s contributing to the modern sheen audible on these tracks, if not overtly.
For me the six tracks that follow don’t quite have the same sense of purpose and identity, the penultimate cut ‘Pressure’ perhaps illustrating why.  It starts off well, with an offbeat funkiness leaning on an appealing bass’n’drums groove laid down by Kevin McCormack and Chris Layton.  But then some horn interjections arrive, as they do on most of the tracks here, and I can’t help thinking it might have been more interesting without them.  Not that this ruins things.  There’s still a satisfying hook, and Shepherd’s grinding solo conveys tension in keeping with the title.  Then they offer some interesting dynamics in the second half, with some gang vocals thrown into the mix and KWS spraying licks around in the background.  But maybe they could have been bolder, stretched the envelope a bit more.
All the same, there are good moments to be found across most of the piece.  When they get heavy on ‘Long Way Down’ it’s with a good strong riff, and if the lyric is so-so it’s still delivered with punch, emphasised by the backing vocals. ‘Never Made It To Memphis’ may not be anything special, but it’s still easy-going fun, as Shepherd’s solo adds some juice and they keep things cranked up enough to make an impression.  And there’s a similar sense of joie de vivre on the closing cover of ZZ Top’s ‘She Loves My Automobile’, a Chuck Berry-esque slice of rock’n’roll that may be a bit of a throwaway but is still entertaining, not least because Shepherd’s solo fits the vibe nicely.
Along the way the slow and melodic ‘My Guitar Is Crying’ is a bit too country rock-ish for me, with rather clichéd words, though Shepherd’s lyrical guitar break works well.  Meanwhile the loping chug of ‘Watch You Go’ is well enough executed, developing some swing as it progresses, and with Shepherd pulling out an interesting choral effect for his solo, but the gag about “I hate to see you leave but I sure do love to watch you go” has been delivered before, with more of a knowing wink, by saxman Jimmy Carpenter.
Dirt On My Diamonds Vol 2 is short’n’sharp, frequently bright and interesting album from Kenny Wayne Shepherd and co. But I reckon that with a bit more sonic adventure they could have achieved a more impressive, striking result.
 
Dirt On My Diamonds Vol 2 is out now, and can be ordered here.

The Cold Stares - The Southern

According to the PR bumf, The Cold Stares’ singer and guitarist Chris Tapp reckoned that “When it came time to record this album, I thought about everybody giving us this Southern rock tag, and decided to intentionally write songs that explore that.”  The results though, don’t sound like yer typical Black Crowing or countrified “Southern rock” peddled by many a band nowadays.  As Tapp tells it, this is because during their Kentucky youth, he and drummer bandmate Brian Mullins used to sit in with some old geezers who spent their time playing the likes of Free, Bad Company, Robin Trower and AC/DC.
So when the metaphorical needle drops on opening track ‘Horse To Water’, what you get sounds like a mash-up of a Lizzy-like stick-and-move riff with a tune redolent of, say, King King.  Which to these ears makes for a pretty good start, and with icing on the proverbial courtesy of a sizzling solo from Tapp.

The Cold Stares, badly in need of a good decorator

Pic by Alex Morgan

Tapp has quite the way with a soulful blues-rock vocal, as evidenced by ‘Blow Wind Blow’, where it’s paired with a muscular cowboy-style riff.  It’s a well-assembled thang, with a strong chorus, and an FX-treated solo from Tapp that matches the mood well.  And later he’s equally soulful on the chorus of ‘Woman’, with its Coverdale-esque melody rubbing up against a grinding riff that almost suppresses a wailing, barbed wire guitar solo – almost, but not quite.
Their ear for a whackingly good rock riff is readily apparent.  There’s the turbo-charged affair that features among the loud/quiet, fast/slow dynamics of ‘Looking For A Fight’, before a square-cut, fuzzed up animal emerges midway to bolster the third verse, and then they hit gas pedal again.  ‘Seven Ways To Sundown’ may open with some inventive low key percussion from Mullins, along with subtle, spaced out, low slung chords, but it’s not long before they drop another big riff to go with Tapp’s delivery of an earnest chorus.  It’s another good song, and sports a restrained, trippy solo that at its end has me ready to hear Hendrix saying “Comin’ to get ya”.  Then next up ‘No Love In The City Anymore’ dives into earshot with an impressive zig-zagging riff to go with pattering percussion and a sturdy chorus, before Tapp knocks out a tasty, twirling solo.
They can get down to the blues roots too though, as on ‘Coming Home’ where Tapp’s jangly acoustic sounds like banjo or mandolin.  Then it gets electrified as it progresses, and the repeated refrain worms its way into you skull.  ‘Level Floor Blues’ has a reverb-soaked, contemplative vocal over a sparse arrangement of tapping drums, glittering guitar, and bell-tolling bass from Bryce Klueh.  It creates a hypnotic mood, made more atmospheric when Tapp unwraps some moaning, groaning bluesy chords.  And final track ‘Mortality Blues’ lives up to its title, with good story-telling to go with more Resonator-like backing.  It’s simple and effective, with maybe a whiff of early Bonamassa – except Tapp is a better, more natural singer.
They show off more stylistic strings to their bow with ‘Confession’ and ‘Giving It Up’.  The former kicks off with choppy SRV-like funkiness, building into a punchy melody with more echo on the vocal.  Then Trap gets to work on an intergalactic transmission of a solo, with Mullins’ drums ramping up and Klueh’s bass grooving busily.  They get so into this, stirring up a spooky, storytelling ambience, that it begins to sound like they’ve been transported – I kid you not – from ‘By-Tor And The Snow Dog’ territory.  Meanwhile on ‘Giving It Up’ the choppy urgency again put me in mind of Stevie Ray to begin with, though with a harder edge than ‘Confession’ – or is it a distant descendant of the aforementioned Trower in upbeat mode?  We could trade comparisons all night, but whatever – it’s another winner.
You can take a horse to water, but you can’t paint it pink.  The Cold Stares may have set out to explore their Southern heritage, but on The Southern they sound like a band with honest-to-goodness classic Seventies blues-rock in their DNA.  And hey, that’s just dandy by me.
 
The Southern is out now on Mascot Records, and can be ordered here.

Check out the Blues Enthused reviews of The Cold Stares' 2023 album Voices here.