LISTEN UP: NEW RELEASES OF VARYING DEGREES OF BRILLIANCE (5.29.2022)

  HOUND DOG TAYLOR & THE HOUSEROCKERS - TEARING THE ROOF OFF

Without a drop of slickness, Taylor's electrified blues was feral, rocking and raw.  Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau referred to the band as "the Ramones of the blues," and it's easy to understand why.  Taylor played fast, loud and sloppy, and would sometimes hit bad notes or get out of tune.  But he always made primeval, soul-satisfying music.  Nobody could match him when it came to emotional fervor and the pure joy of making music.  Songs like "Give Me Back My Wig," "She's Gone," and "Walking The Ceiling" are now considered blues classics. "Live wire exuberance and hard-as-nails force," said Rolling Stone, "natural for partying, drinking and talking loud."

From the vaults we are gifted with thirty-five cuts:  songs, instrumentals, boogies, shuffles and blues in live and studio settings from myriad sources.  None of it on the man's Alligator catalog; nevertheless, all of it necessary listening.  Or as Hound Dog would have it:  "When I die, they'll say he couldn't play shit; but he sure made it sound good."  

REV. PEYTON'S BIG DAMN BAND - DANCE SONGS FOR HARD TIMES

While they're only a trio, the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band deliver a sound that lives up to their name, with thick, bass-heavy, blues-based guitar figures and growling vocals accompanied by muscular but minimal drumming and the metallic percussive scratch of a washboard (making them one of the first rock bands to regularly feature the latter instrument since Black Oak Arkansas).  Their style is informed by rural blues, honky-tonk country, and the rebellious spirit of rock & roll, as Reverend Peyton's raw and wiry guitar figures add texture to their straightforward melodies

With this, the Rev. & Company's most recent release, we are presented with a risk for any band, that is to say, cutting live in the studio and adding some overdubs for color later.  It was the right move.  Dance Songs for Hard Times leaps out of the speakers, the band boogying with abandon and fearless joy.  Listen closely and there are indeed tales of woe, songs filled with uncertainty and fear, yet Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band blows through the darkness by finding salvation within the act of making a giant, glorious noise.  This is music of togetherness, finding a common ground during the hard times by deciding to rock hard and dance the troubles away.  It might be pitched toward this moment in history, but these are eternal values, and Dance Songs for Hard Times sounds so electric and alive, it's hard not to see how this album will transcend its COVID-19 origins and offer solace and good times for years to come.

Courtesy - All Music

PASTOR CHAMPION - I JUST WANT TO BE A GOOD MAN

A preacher, a pastor, an outsider gospel singer who was raised in the Jim Crow South. He fled to California and joined a gang before becoming born again, spending the rest of his days traveling with his electric guitar to congregations and people’s homes from San Jose to Shreveport. 

Champion knew that this record wasn’t going to be for everyone. He didn’t really care. The important part for him was just getting the message out there in the same way that he always had: traveling alone with his electric guitar. “I want to say what I mean,” he said, “be practical, precise, to the point, and, at the same time, diplomatic.” In other words, he just wanted to be a good man. 

DELVON LAMARR ORGAN TRIO - LIVE IN LOVELAND!

I Told You So from the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio hit many best jazz album lists for 2021, but here we have Delvon and company not resting on their laurels, but boldly throwing down this nasty live set mere months after the aforementioned release!  And you know, you can call this groovy, or you can call it with-it or you can call it throw back, but you doesn't has to call it jazz!  That's right, baby, 'cause as music poobah Ted Gioia noted:  "If this album were a pharmaceutical the label would read: 'Active Ingredient: Undiluted Funk.' By any measure, there’s more Booker T than bebop in these grooves. But whatever you call it, Live in Loveland will not disappoint."  There you go . . .

UFOMAMMUT - FENICE

Italian alchemists and power trio Ufomammut bestow upon us unworthy children their ninth studio album.  For over twenty years, the band has combined the heaviness and majesty of dynamic riff worship with a nuanced understanding of psychedelic tradition and history in music, creating a cosmic, futuristic, technicolor sound designed for absolute immersion.   As all music should be, but never mind that.

Whilst the band are well-known for their psychedelic travels into the far reaches of the cosmos, Fenice is a much more introspective listening experience.  The work was conceived as a single concept track, divided in six facets of an inward-facing focus.  Sonic experimentations abound in the exploration of this look inward whilst synths and experimental vocal effects are featured more prominently than ever before as the band push themselves ever further into the uncharted territory of their very identity. 

Preternatural baloney?  Preternatural, perhaps.  Baloney, perhaps not . . .