Me and Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse have been like ships that pass in the night over the years.  I’ve clocked their name, and heard a few things from time to time, but I’ve never really sat down and got properly acquainted with them. Well that’s all over now, baby blue. Lately I’ve been getting into raucous garage rock kinda stuff, and when the Beaux Gris Gris combo whack into opening track ‘Oh Yeah!’ they hit the goddamn motherlode.  Robin Davey’s guitar riff is a pile driver, Greta Valenti squawks her tongue-twisting vocal like a maniac, Sam Robertson’s pulverises ..read more

Rolling up some albums from various quarters today, with a couple that have already escaped into the wild, and one that’s coming very shortly.   Albert Cummings – Strong  Albert Cummings is an exponent of straight up and down electric blues, and a good one at that.  He’s got a rich and resonant voice, and enough classic blues guitar chops to start an academy.  Here he’s put those components together in fine fashion, with a string of satisfying songs on his recently released album Strong. Albert Cummings enjoys some noises off The opener ‘Emmylou’ get ..read more

There’s a promotional chat by Ian Hunter for Defiance Part 2: Fiction on YouTube, during which he says “I tell you what, I know something.  They’re all going to go, it’s not as good as the last one. ‘Cause they’ve only heard this one five minutes, and they’ve heard the last one for a year.” I’ll tell you what – he’s right. But then Defiance Part 1 set the bar incredibly high.  It was a late career slam dunk of an album for anyone who loves proper rock’n’roll.  And if . . . Fiction doesn’t hit the same heights from start to finish, it still has ..read more

“Three minute hero, I wanna be - a three minute hero.”  So sang The Selector many moons ago. The Milk Men may well agree with that sentiment.  Most of the ten tracks on Holy Cow! are of the short’n’sweet variety, making for a brisk canter of an album.  The mood of the songs on offer here tends to suit that approach too. The opening ‘One Man Band’ is set in motion by a spinning, twirling riff over a steady beat, laying down the boogie before Jamie Smy weighs in with a rasping vocal laying out the modus vivendi of an independent geezer (rather than a musician without ban ..read more

Do you like a good riff?  I like a good riff.  And the good news is that there’s a little corker on ‘Empire And A Prayer’, the opening track on Rebel’s Journey.  It’s bright and breezy and enhanced by piano, the bedrock of a cracking tune that also features nice bass playing through the verses by Mick Jeynes, a neat tumbling turnaround at the end of the chorus, and a well-suited, sharp and tidy guitar solo from main man Jonathan Earp.  Verily, it’s a tune that obeys the law that you should hit the ground running – though it doesn’t half come to a sudden ..read more

Well, this is nice. The trouble is, I expect more from The Black Keys than just “nice”, as my recent Ten Top Tracks survey of their career should make clear. Sure, the form that “more” might take will depend on where they’re at right now - I’m not demanding they go over old ground.  But I do want them to make me sit up and pay attention somehow. Unfortunately, Ohio Players doesn’t do that often enough. This isn’t to say that there’s nothing interesting going on.  On the opener ‘This Is Nowhere’, for example, there’s a booming, sonorous bass line that stands out am ..read more

“Do what I want, when I want,” sings Susan Santos on track six of Sonora, which is titled, er, ‘What I Want’.  And it’s a suitably assertive chunk of bluesy rock’n’roll to convey that sentiment, with a throbbing riff, a decent hook, and a slippery guitar solo into which Santos bungs some dollops of grit as well as adding some satisfying overdubs on the way to a gutsy finish.  That lyric is an appropriate statement of intent too, because across the eight tracks here she doesn’t allow herself to get stuck in a rut. A couple of the best tracks here steer away from blues-r ..read more

Welcome back my friends, for the third instalment of Ten Top Tracks, surveying the repertoire of an artist favoured by Blues Enthused, but without any of that ranking nonsense - and bearing in mind that tomorrow I might choose several different tunes! This time around I’m featuring a band for the first time, in the shape of British blues-rock stalwarts King King, and following a roughly chronological path.  Keep your eyes peeled for the links to the tracks on YouTube (a playlist will follow in due course), and when you’re sitting comfortably we’ll begin – not at the beginning, but wi ..read more

I really like North Mississippi Hill Country blues.  I like the often hypnotic grooves, the edgy drumming that’s always liable to undergo an eruption, and the real sense of heart that’s often discernible in the music. But to be honest, this album by Cedric Burnside has me in three minds, as it were. There are tracks on Hill Country Love that hit the nail on the head.  ‘Juke Joint’ for instance, is a song about the pleasure of getting on down which sports one of the more low down, gritty guitar parts on the album, which seems to get doubled up as the song progresses. &n ..read more

It was a year ago yesterday that I wrote a review of Elles Bailey playing live in Edinburgh, and since Live At The Fire Station is a document of the same tour, one might wonder what more there is to say beyond what I wrote then.  But as it turns out, the album provides the opportunity for a deeper appreciation of certain aspects of her live show. For one thing, it may be Elles Bailey’s name on the backdrop, but she ain’t doing this alone, and Fire Station absolutely justifies her calling on the audience at the end of ‘Sunshine City’ to “Give it up for this incredible band!” &nbs ..read more