Alice Armstrong - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 10 February 2023

Before tonight my only previous acquaintance with Alice Armstrong was her impressive guest vocalist appearance on the Stevie Watts Organ Trio album Mission To The Moon, an outing that leaned towards jazzy soul.  Well, this ain’t that – or at least, not often.
What becomes absolutely clear in the course of this show is that Armstrong is no one-trick pony, stylistically.  Or to put it more bluntly, she’s a singer so damn good that she can do absolutely anything that takes her fancy.  Blues, soul, funk, jazz – you name it, this girl can sing it.  Heck,

Alice Armstrong leans into the groove

on ‘Auto Assassin’, a weird and warped epic kinda thing about being loved near to death, she even uncorks a totally on point quasi-operatic passage.
Now, this kind of all-round vocal brilliance is undoubtedly a blessing, but can it also be a curse?  Reason I ask is that at times this set felt a bit unfocussed, as it flitted from the chunky and funky, sashaying ‘Head To Toe’, to the work song vibe of the dramatic ‘Graveyard Shift’, to the slightly flimsy soul-funk of ‘Motel’, and later the oddball jazz-funk of ‘Boomerang’.  Perhaps the absence of aforementioned keys professor Stevie Watts, who shoulda been here but couldn’t make it, accounted for the sense of a missing ingredient, some Hammond colourings that would have pulled things into a more coherent whole.
Whatever, let’s accentuate the positive, because there’s still plenty of that.  The avowedly Aretha-influenced ‘Better Late Than Never’ is a crackling torch song, and the cue for an intense Armstrong vocal full of power and dynamics.  She hits another sweet spot on the BB-styled ‘B-Side’, complemented by guitarist Matt Long (yes, he of Catfish) going off the deep end with a squealing solo.  ‘Upbeat Baby’ is a bump’n’grind blues on which our Alice digs in deep to add pleasing heft, while Long delivers a Stratocastic solo before Armstrong really lets rip at the end.  And ‘Love Song’ is a stunning ballad involving just Armstrong’s voice and Long’s guitar, as she
sings that she “can’t write a love song when I ain’t got no one” – forget genre labels, this is sheer quality whatever you call it.
They deliver a cracking take on BB King’s ‘How Blue Can You Get’ too, to crown the set, inviting Leo from support band Blue Milk up to inject a star turn harp solo, and his buddy Jonny Mac to add a delicate guitar solo on the way to a wild conclusion.  Debut single ‘Speed Dial’ makes for an enjoyably funky, where-have-I-heard-that-riff-before set closer, though personally I could have done with a bit less of the solos-all-round padding.
It's early days for Alice Armstrong, but she’s already good enough to have garnered a UK Blues

Blue Milk - Mac'n'Whyte, not Mac'n'Cheese

Award nomination, and I have every confidence that she and her amigos will hone their sound to make even more impact before very long.
And the same may be true of Glasgow-based opening act Blue Milk.  It’s four years since I last saw them in a similar support slot, and at that time I thought they had a certain something, raw as they were.  Tonight they feel tighter and more confident, but still edgy.
They kick off with the brisk blues of ‘Street Corner Man, with tub-thumping drums and squawking harp contributing to a Yardbirds-like rave-up vibe.  ‘Take Me There’ features a twangy intro, a coolly meandering bass line from Ike Malinki, and a  satisfyingly rambling slide break from Mac.   Then drummer Taylor Whyte lays down an enthusiastically snappy beat on a rumbling reading of ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’, embellished by some good interplay between Jonny Mac’s slide guitar and Leo Glaister’s harp.
‘Coal In The Fire’ serves up more driving Delta blues, while ‘River’ (I think) witnesses some smart finger-picking from Mac and a drumming wig-out from Whyte.  It’s no great surprise that ‘Come Back Around’ explores a North Mississippi hill country sound, given their stated love for the likes of Junior Kimbrough and R L Burnside, and their latest single ‘No Sleep Blues’ provides a suitably punchy conclusion to a punchy set.
Blue Milk’s straightforward electrified blues went down well with this audience.  They may still be rough diamonds - and in a way that's a good thing - but they clearly enjoy what they’re doing, and they have the potential to develop further.

Kyla Brox - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 22 February 2019

The lady can sing, no two ways about it.  We often talk about vocals being powerful, but what Kyla Brox has, it seems to me is vocal strength – range, control and richness all coming together with soulfulness and clarity.  She’s got a box of tricks at her disposal too, in the form of songbird falsetto and a capacity for swooping, somersaulting vocal twists and turns, though she’s sensibly measured in their use.  She’s also got a warm and winning personality, and is evidently very comfortable as a performer – maybe too comfortable at times, but we’ll get to that later.

Kyla Brox - lady sings the blues

Her skills are evident in bluesy fashion on ‘Change Your Mind’, on which she also contributes some flute playing – and it’s a big grown up flute, by the by, with a warm sound that contrasts with the piercing, roaming guitar solo from Paul Farr that follows, as a precursor to a huge vocal finish.

The heart of their sound is soul-funk, ranging across the Latin feel of the brief ‘Devil’s Bridge’, the funky ‘Little Of Your Love’, on which hubby Danny Blomeley contributes a well bendy bass solo, and new single ‘Don’t Let Me Fall’, which opens in minimalist, ballad-like fashion before picking up into sweet soul.  ‘Choose Me’ adds a further variation with an Atlantic soul feel driven by a snapping backbeat from Mark Warburton, while Farr adds a fizzing, rock’n’rolling solo.

Now this kind of stuff, while very good in its own terms, doesn’t necessarily stretch Brox, while now and then Farr treads a mite too close to slick jazziness for my palate. In other words it can all get a bit comfy.  But there’s a welcome shift of gears after the interval, in the form of ‘If You See Him’. Starting off as stripped back blues, with Brox getting into a real old-fashioned Delta mood, it takes off into a gutsy, walloping instrumental section, with coruscating wah-wah guitar from Farr, before Brox gives it large to close the song out.

Their second set ranges from the rollicking, near jump blues of ‘Bluesman’s Child’, on which Kyla tells us what it was like to grow up with bluesman Victor Brox as her dad, to the slowie ‘Honestly Blues’, on which she delivers bursts of falsetto while Farr offers a varied, emotionally charged solo.  Meanwhile ‘For The Many’, which has a political dimension to its lyrics, is strident funk with lots of stonking bass work from Blomeley, and ‘Pain & Glory’, the title track from the forthcoming new album, is a soul ballad on which Brox demonstrates outstanding vocal control, peaking in another jetstream of a sustained note.

At the end of the night the only covers in their set offer twin treats.  Firstly there’s the set closer ‘Wang Dang Doodle’, on which they make it clear that they know their way around raunchy R’n’B and then some.  Farr gives it a grinding, flashing bluesy solo and Blomeley adds a bass wigout, while Brox herself makes Koko Taylor seem one-dimensional and extemporises merrily over a singalong for good measure – stylistically it’s a great fit for her.  Then for an encore they choose an entirely different path with Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ – it’s a daring, dramatic choice, kicking off with just guitar and vocals, and they do it spellbinding justice, conjuring a rapt silence from the audience as they bring it to a close.

Blue Milk - rough as an entertaining badger's bahookey

Rapt silence is not the modus operandi of support band Blue Milk.  The Glasgow-based four-piece are down and dirty purveyors of raw electrified blues.  They may give Junior Kimbrough’s ‘All Night Long’ a sombre opening, but soon they crash headlong into it, and if drummer Taylor Whyte doesn’t emulate the style of a Cedric Burnside he still builds up an impressive head of steam, dovetailing with a strong bass groove from Ike Malinki.

They brew up a bluesy storm on a convincing reading of ‘In My Time Of Dying’, which singer and guitarist Jonny Mac attributes to Dylan, though he was almost as much a Johnny-come-lately to the song as Zeppelin.  Whatever, they know what they’re about, as their own ‘Take Me There’ confirms.  With an intricate little riff, lung-busting harp from Leo Glaister, and a convincingly picked slide solo from Mac, it’s rough as a badger’s bahookey – in a good way.

They’ve got a couple of other authentic originals in their locker too.  ‘Lord Knows I’m Trying’ has a scratchy vibe and generates impressive intensity towards its close, while ‘Moonshine’ is all rumble, wail and spikiness. The crowd are well up for a swinging blast through Elmore James’ ‘Dust My Broom’, with jangling, crunching slide from Mac, and they bring the right kind of edginess to the Black Keys’ ‘Couldn’t Tie Me Down’.

I know bugger all about Blue Milk, but they have an air of scratched vinyl, annoying the neighbours with loud music at two in the morning, and a determination to do something different. I liked ‘em.