New album releases in 200 words or less...
Shemekia Copeland
– Done Come Too Far (Alligator Records)
One of today’s finest singers in any genre, Shemekia Copeland has been on
an impressive roll, delivering three consecutive career-making albums, the last
two working with Nashville producer/musician Will Kimbrough. Third time’s a
charm, Copeland returning to the Music City to collaborate with Kimbrough again
on Done Come Too Far, which features talented friends like Sonny
Landreth, Cedric Burnside, and Aaron Lee Tasjan complimenting the steady backing
of bassist Lex Price and drummer Pete Abbott. The results are pure magic
(again). Copeland blows the doors down with the defiant “Too Far To Be Gone,”
her powerful vocals soaring atop Landreth’s serpentine slide-work. The
African-flavored “Gullah Geechee” ties Delta field hollers to their deeper roots
while the Cajun romp “Fried Catfish and Bibles” is a sheer delight.
Socially-conscious songs like “Pink Turns To Red” are turbocharged by Copeland’s
awesome, pissed-off, pummeling vocals while a cover of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s
“Barefoot In Heaven” adds a blues tint to the Americana gem. The heavyweight
title track is fueled by Copeland’s fierce voice and Burnside’s mesmerizing
fretwork. Closing with her father Johnny’s “Nobody But You,” Copeland cements
her blues bona-fides with blistering intensity. What are you waiting for; go buy
it!
Grade: A+
BUY IT!
Jade Warrior – Last Autumn’s Dream (Esoteric Recordings U.K.)
The third album from British art-rockers Jade Warrior, 1972’s
Last Autumn’s Dream found the relatively obscure (stateside) band
exploring much the same musical turf as fellow 1970s-era proggers King Crimson,
Family, or Gentle Giant, but with loftier intent, more reliance on English folk
traditions, and seemingly less of an eye on rock stardom. Which is to say that
it’s every bit as interesting and multi-textured as any other prog-rock album
released the time, its tracklist jumping from the pastoral, classicist beauty of
“A Winter’s Tale” to the bristling, angry hard rock of “Snake,” and right back
to the darkly-atmospheric ambient nightmare tones of “Dark River,” all in the
course of a quarter-hour. That’s not even mentioning the exotic instrumentation,
whiplash time signature changes, and oblique lyrics that inhabit each
performance like a hallucinogenic fungus. Guitarist Tony Duhig and percussionist
Jon Field were bandmates in 1960s psych-rockers July (their self-titled 1968 LP
is a psych classic), and their combined vision drove Jade Warrior to
maddeningly-delightful heights of creativity. The band’s self-titled 1971 debut
may rock harder, and their sophomore effort, Release, is artier but, with
Last Autumn’s Dream, they found the sweet spot in the eye of the
hurricane.
Grade: B
BUY IT!
Gwil Owen – The Road To the Sky (self-produced)
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Gwil Owen is one of the many talented
outsiders looking in on Nashville’s mainstream music biz, a DIY lifer making
music on his own terms. The Road To the Sky is Owen’s follow-up to 2020’s
excellent
Flying Dream, and it follows a similar vein with touches of rock, country, and Little
Feat-styled funk. Owen is accompanied here by talented friends like
multi-instrumentalist Joe McMahan, keyboardist Tony Crow, and bassist Dave
Jacques, and it shows in the grooves. “When the Songwriter’s Gone” displays a
few Springsteen-esque flourishes within its loping backroads vibe and gorgeous
guitarplay while “Ghost Town” rocks with brilliant poetic imagery. “Change”
relies on minimal instrumentation and Owen’s gritty, twangy vocals (think
Delbert McClinton) and the haunting, bluesy “Murder” reminds of Tom Waits. Owen
uses a pre-recorded guitar coda from his late friend David Olney to fittingly
punctuate the beautiful ballad “She Does It All With Her Eyes.” Owen is a gifted
story-teller and a charismatic lyricist with an ear for melody and the ability
to create deceptively-complex and lush soundscapes. An adventuresome, old-school
tunesmith in the vein of Olney or Guy Clark, Owen is an artist worth your time
to discover.
Grade: A
BUY DIRECT!
Prince and the Revolution – Live (NPG Records/Sony Legacy)
If you’re a Prince fan (and who isn’t?), don’t let the nearly $40 price
tag of this swanky set deter you from jumping, headfirst, into the deep end of
the pool. Documenting an especially electric 1985 performance in Syracuse NY,
Live offers 20 dynamite songs across two CDs and a Blu-ray disc with 5.1
surround sound, as well as a groovy 24-page color booklet with liner notes and
rare photos. Prince and the Revolution were 93 shows into a 98-show tour in
support of the chart-topping, thirteen-million-selling Purple Rain album
and they’re firing on all cylinders. Prince’s trademark blend of psych-drenched
guitar rock, slinky funk, and sizzling soul was on full display on a “greatest
hits” setlist that includes crowd-pleasers like “1999,” “Little Red Corvette,”
“When Doves Cry,” and a mind-bending, expanded reading of “Purple Rain”
showcasing the Purple One’s justified ‘Guitar God’ status (and the band’s
tight-knit musical chemistry). There’s nothing here from
Around the World In A Day, which was released a month after this show,
but there are plenty of choice cuts from 1999 and
Purple Rain alongside the deep cuts, making Live an invaluable
snapshot of Prince and the Revolution at the peak of their powers.
Grade: A
BUY IT!
Sour Ops – Deep Fake (Feralette Media)
Nashville rockers Sour Ops break up the crushing monotony of reality with
another id-tickling album, Deep Fake, a collection guaranteed to scratch
whatever musical itch is currently plaguing your fever-dream cerebellum.
Ringmaster Price Harrison leads his crackerjack band through ten high-voltage,
hair-raising performances that range from the bright, buoyant power-pop of “Navy
Blue” and the jagged satire of the dark-hued “Doomsday Prepper” to the pop-metal
edge of “Texas Punk 66,” which wears its gorgeous guitar tone like a magic
cloak. The title track is a fierce mid-tempo rocker with brilliant lyrics about
fleeting celebrity that is combined with stunning, chaotic fretwork while
“Another Letdown” turns a keen eye towards modern society with 1960s-styled
psychedelic pop and vintage ‘70s muscle car rock overkill, resulting in a bloody
good time. The insightful “I Followed You Down” explores the dangers of falling
prey to a cult of personality while Deep Fake closes its too-short
30-minutes with “Fall Into the Sky,” a shimmering, ethereal love song with
yearning instrumentation. With Deep Fake, Sour Ops has moved beyond the
obvious Replacements/Stooges/Cheap Trick references to truly find their own
musical voice, one that masterfully blends everything that came before into
something unique, personal, and entirely stunning.
Grade: A+
BUY DIRECT!
Supersonic Blues Machine – Voodoo Nation (Provogue Records)
Supersonic Blues Machine is the trio of bassist Fabrizio Grossi,
guitarist Kris Barras, and journeyman drummer Kenny Aronoff, the band showing
itself to be a well-oiled, high-performance engine of destruction with
Voodoo Nation, their third studio album (and the first to feature Barras,
a British fretburner in the Rory Gallagher tradition). As with their first
couple of blues-busting albums, Voodoo Nation offers up an inspired blend
of blues, rock, and funk all delivered with no little heart and soul. Also as
with previous LPs, they invited a slew of blues-rock axe-manglers along for the
ride, with talents like Eric Gales, Ana Popovic, Joe Louis Walker, Kirk
Fletcher, and Sonny Landreth jumping into the rumble seat. King Solomon Hicks
brings a Hill Country vibe to the sonic-grind of “You and Me” and “Devil At the
Doorstep” benefits from Gales’ fluid tones and imagination. Popovic is an
underrated gem whose duel with Barras is pure blues-guitar heaven while the
Supersonic guitarist lights a wildfire with the inspired “Too Late” and its
Leadbelly licks. The title track is a swamp-rock masterpiece with swagger,
stunning fretwork, and a dark-hued ambiance. Supersonic Blues Machine ain’t your
grand-pappy’s blues, but they could be yours.
Grade: B
BUY IT!
Various Artists –
Heroes and Villains: The Sound of Lost Angeles 1965-68 (Grapefruit Records U.K.)
From pop, rock, and proto-Americana to blues, folk, and psychedelia,
there’s no denying that the mid-‘60s L.A. music scene was bursting at the seams
with creativity and vision. Leave it up to those madmen at U.K. archival label
Grapefruit to document the history of this influential era.
Heroes and Villains collects a whopping 90 (!) tunes on three CDs in a
nifty clamshell, the accompanying guidebook offering comprehensive liner notes
and rare photos. The “usual suspects” to be found here, well-known chart titans
like the Monkees, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Steppenwolf, Sonny & Cher,
and the Mamas and the Papas, among others, but not always the songs you might
think you’d find. There are oddities like the Mothers of Invention and Captain
Beefheart; talented obscurities like Tim Buckley and Ruth Friedman; and cult
rockers like Love, Kaleidoscope, and Merrell Fankhauser’s various bands. Where
the box set really shines, though, is with the too-cool unknowns like the Rose
Garden, Children of the Mushroom, the Laughing Wind, or the Chyldren, et al.
There’s a lot of meat on these discs, a myriad of musical possibilities and
styles, more than a few of which are guaranteed to satisfy your musical needs...
Grade: A
BUY IT!
Previously on That Devil Music.com:
Short Rounds, December 2021:
Calidoscopio, Deep Purple, Tom Guerra, The Specials, The Wildhearts, Sami
Yaffa & 'I'm A Freak Baby 3'
Short Rounds, September 2021:
Marshall Crenshaw, Crack The Sky, Donna Frost, Mark Harrison & the Happy
Tramps, Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram, the Rubinoos, and
Jon Savage’s 1972-1976
Short Rounds, June 2021:
The Black Keys, the Bummers, Michael Nesmith, Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost,
Quinn Sullivan, and the Vejtables
Short Rounds, April 2021:
Peter Case, The Fortunate Few, David Olney & Anana Kaye, Sour Ops, Joe
Strummer, and the Thieves
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