Scott H. Biram
Graveyard Shift

LA RECENSIONE

Visor pulled down over the eyes, big mustache and tattoo flaunted like a boozing truck driver, and an acoustic guitar more than played, attacked in a blues style that mangles and tortures the strings with a thrash metaller’s fervor and speed.

A "dirty old one-man band" rowdy and a bit flashy (from the notes: lead and harmony vocals, CB radio, loudspeaker, breathing, harmonica, gut all acoustic & electric guitars, Hammond B3 organ, homemade footstomp board, hi-hat, tambourine, claps, hambone, bible thump, special effects and random noises) that just a few months after a terrifying life-threatening car accident was already out performing and yelling crudely from a wheelchair.

A head-on collision with a beast of a truck at 120 kilometers per hour in which Scott, instead of his skin, lost 30 centimeters of intestine, along with three shattered limbs and a foot. "Scott H. Biram won’t die" they tell us, and indeed he doesn’t. But it’s known that the devil loves to take a dip in the blues, even if it’s white.

Dusty sound and a production that essentially "doesn’t care," Scott's songs reek of carrion and sound awful. A jack-of-all-trades and eccentric craftsman who would certainly get along (or gladly brawl) with the old hobo Seasick Steve, a voice and a songwriting method that when not savagely scraping vocal cords, recalls the outcast Steve Earle (hobo face and a year spent in jail for "bad character"), punk violence and fury from beans and sausages that only lack a drum kit to pummel the filthy duo Left Lane Cruiser.

The hit with the 18-Wheeler gave him a good calm, and indeed from the road-heavy metal of previous years, he switched in Graveyard Shift to a maturity and variety of styles that would not even seem to belong to him. Country, gospel, vintage hillbilly, folk, and of course, the usual blue escapades with the slide on fire. He displays a mangled hyena in the desert on the cover and sings "only Jesus gonna set you free": and indeed with that pig-like face, you never understand if he’s mocking you.