Review: JJ Grey & Mofro - Orange Blossoms
Posted on 13 November 2008 | 2 Comments
Filed Under: Album Reviews, Blues
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It has been a few years since I first heard Mofro’s stellar debut album Blackwater but last year’s excellent Country Ghetto and the recently released Orange Blossoms show a band that has grown by leaps and bounds over the last seven years. From the swampy blues of their early material, JJ Grey and Mofro have morphed into something a little smoother and a little more polished and (for what it’ s worth) Orange Blossoms is basically a soul/blues album, but a killer one at that. The songs, the performances, and the production on the record are almost flawless and constantly sound as if the ghost of Otis Redding had a hand in it. While JJ Grey’s vocals get right to the redline and then back off into a sweet falsetto, blues guitar, electric piano, orchestration, and brass from the Hercules Horns provides a tuneful, soulful, and subdued backdrop that is anything but over the top. It all might sound a bit strange coming from someone like me; someone who prefers punk to most everything else and isn’t much a blues fan. That universality is (however) what makes Orange Blossoms jump from the speakers as if JJ Grey is preaching directly to his listeners without the medium in between. The music is boisterous when it needs to be and down tempo when the song calls for it. Orange Blossoms sounds loose and “in the pocket” but also manages to sounds perfectly placed. It is almost as if (at times) JJ Grey is at the mercy of his songs and possessed by his own music.
MP3 | JJ Grey & Mofro – Orange Blossoms Orange Blossoms
MP3 | JJ Grey & Mofro – Everything Good Is Bad Orange Blossoms
Review: Graham Lindsey - We Are All Alone In This Together / The Mine EP
Posted on 25 October 2008 | No Comments
Filed Under: Album Reviews, Americana, Blues, Folk
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Graham Lindsey (at least for now) lives in Montana with his wife and two dogs after having made stops in the driftless woods of Wisconsin, New York’s chrome canyons, a Nebraska farmhouse, and New Orleans along the way. Luckily this well-traveled troubadour has been bringing his guitar and banjo with him wherever he goes, and (recently) in Montana recorded his two new releases We Are All Alone In This Together and its companion The Mine EP. I can easily sum these two records up in one word (amazing) but it will most certainly take many more to do any justice at all.
The first thing that strikes you about We Are All Alone In This Together is how raw, primal, and off the beaten path Graham’s music is. It is dark and unapologetic and roots folk-blues that falls somewhere in the middle of Gillian Welch, Bob Dyan, Tom Waits, Woody Guthrie, etc… and does so without any hyperbole. Graham Lindsey and his uncompromising backwoods Americana is the real deal and We Are All Alone In This Together (while not aged like those I compared him to) can (even at this stage) easily hold its own with anything from those artists. We Are All Alone In This Together is haunting and timeless but doesn’t hark to the past in order to rehash it. Graham’s honesty and sincerity and naked emotion abounds on these songs and its instantly apparent that this is as contemporary as any current Americana currently being played by peers like William Elliott Whitmore, Austin Lucas, and Chuck Ragan.
While Graham Lindsey’s aching gravelly voice and his lyrics (along with his acoustic guitar and banjo) are at the heart of We Are All Alone In This Together but the addition of fiddle, pedal steel guitar, harmonica, and other assorted instrumentation give this layers and a scruffy richness that makes it bore its way into your heart. It is almost all I’ve been listening to since I heard the first notes. Both We Are All Alone In This Together and The Mine EP will be released just under a month from now on 11/18/2008 on Spacebar Recordings.
MP3 | Graham Lindsey – Shit On A Shovel We Are All Alone In This Together
MP3 | Graham Lindsey – Everything The Mine EP
Review: Black Diamond Heavies - A Touch Of Someone Else's Class
Posted on 16 September 2008 | 1 Comment
Filed Under: Album Reviews, Blues
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Black Diamond Heavies are a filthy raw blues duo from Tennessee whose sophomore album A Touch Of Someone Else’s Class is full of Southern fried and burned-in drums-n-organ blues stomps. It’s a sweaty, trashy, and whiskey-soaked ride but amazingly well-played despite the devilishly red-lined production that sends the album into a hot hot overdriven heat. Owing as much to roof-raising gospel as they do to punk, Black Diamond Heavies have stripped it all down to the bare essentials.
John Wesley Meyers provides vocals and pounds the keys while Van Campbell plays drums like they’re exploding. Myers is (fittingly) the son of a Baptist preacher and Campbell comes from a family of bourbon distillers. Their pedigree couldn’t be more perfect.
There are stomping songs like “Nutbush City Limit” and blues ballads like “Bidin My Time” but Black Diamond Heavies pull both stylistic affects off without a hitch. The drums burst right out of the speakers as if my ears are 6 inches from a 500 watt sound system. And through all of the feverishly fuzzed-out bliss the soulful nature of these tunes can’t be denied. If Catfish Haven dishes out neo-soul the these guys have sold their souls (or soul) to the devil and recorded this album deep in the fiery depths. Black Diamond Heavies are on tour now and will actually be playing Chicago as the opening act for Tom Waits. Hell yeah.
MP3 | Black Diamond Heavies – Everythang Is Everythang A Touch Of Someone Else’s Class
MP3 | Black Diamond Heavies – Smoothe It Out A Touch Of Someone Else’s Class
Review: Left Lane Cruiser - Bring Yo' Ass To The Table
Posted on 19 August 2008 | 2 Comments
Filed Under: Album Reviews, Americana, Blues
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Fuck man, this is awesome. I think I probably heard about Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Left Lane Cruiser from the good folks over at Nine Bullets (a great site you should check out BTW) and once I picked up a copy of their latest album, Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table, I haven’t been able to turn it off. Their swampy Mississippi ghetto electric blues just rumble like an earthquake inside my head. I’m not even sure how Joe Evans and Brenn Beck (yeah, a two piece) can actually coax this much ferocious noise from their instruments. I love it.
If you can’t tell what I think of Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table from the few sentences above, here are a few more to convince you. Evans’ blistering electrified slide guitar, his whiskey soaked vocals, and “Sausage Paw” Beck’s thumping are raw like broken, blistered, and bleeding hands splintered and holding a fifth. This shit is greasy, gritty, grimy, and un-fucking-real. I mean, the sweat just drips off this this record thick like motor oil. Left Lane Cruiser is the real deal folks so tap yer toes, stomp yer feet, nod yer head, or do whatever it is you do and go get a copy of Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table.
MP3 | Left Lane Cruiser – Set Me Down Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table
MP3 | Left Lane Cruiser – Porn N’ Beans Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table
