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Rating:
(Le diable probablement)...
In 2005 there are no more cotton fields and the black souls to possess with music are scarce. Better to move to the towns in search of white souls buried in dingy garages or on street corners, strumming for a few dollars. These two guys: John Evans, who takes his slide guitar to the pawnshop to play, and Brenn Breck, who uses cardboard boxes as a bass drum, are the most cursed by neighbors deafened by the infernal noise. They have a childhood friend who plays bass with them in the worst bars of Fort Wayne, but that's not necessary: the sound has to be as raw as possible. If you make a pact with the Devil, you have to be ruthless, no sentimentalism.
As a reward, the victory at the Battle of Bands in Indiana and a self-produced album with the prize money. John's voice turns into a rabid dog's sneer, the razor strokes of his slide peel off the wallpaper in the neat little houses of Fort Wayne, and his new name is Freddie J IV. Meanwhile, Brenn is now Sausage Paw and beats that 30-inch drum on the floor like a madman, where a few feet below, the spirits of old shamans sleep.
In January 2008 you can bring your dirty behind to the table, and you’ll be served the best whiskey of the newly begun year. The instruments are assaulted as if to stitch up with a thread of blood that old passion that dates back to the deportations of Yoruba and Mandingo slaves. Throw the records of those posers, the White Stripes, in the trash and turn your head to the boogie of "Set me free," even the ZZ Top of their golden days couldn't have thrilled you this way. With "Amy's in the kitchen" they really hit hard with that doom singing spread over the haphazard guitar and drums playing hide and seek. To talk about their favorite dish ("Pork n' Beans") they use a hip hop cadence drowned in slide slashes, while to discuss racism ("Justify") their blues fuses chords and solos with the firepower needed to navigate unscathed through the deep and violent South: "...Well the mama and the children, came out to watch you burn/ And the lawyer and the preacher, came out to take their turn."
Let a track like "Big Momma" come over you and maybe you'll understand that blues at its core is fiercer music than punk. A hypnotic kaleidoscope of distortions and dissonances perpetuates the vibrations of the mighty Mississippi River. The lesson of the great wandering hobo Seasick Steve hasn't been lost, tracks like "KFD" or "G Bob" force us to also ride for free on the freight trains of the Pacific & Eastern Railways trying not to be massacred by the sadistic conductor Shack (Robert Aldrich's "Emperor of the North," a film from 1973).
We are safe within the walls of home. A pity.
P.S.: this review is dedicated to the great virtual hobo Odradek, may he escape the ferocity of the conductor Shack.
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