Black Diamond Heavies, Every Damn Time
This duo of self-described "vagrants/citizens of the world" makes gruff, scratchy, lo-fi blues and soul music like there was nothing else they ever wanted to do. It ain't pretty, but it's got balls. Like Hillstomp, they make a big sound for two people, but it's dark and electrified and loud.
While his left hand covers the bass parts on a bass keyboard, singer John Wesley Myers pounds a distorted sound out of his Fender Rhodes electric piano with his right, which provides the hoarseness that hard music normally gets from guitars. On vocals he sounds as much like Howlin' Wolf as any white man I've ever heard, particularly on "Might Be Right" and the frenzied opener "Fever In My Blood." The Doors - another keyboard-heavy band that (live, anyway) relied on keyboard bass - come to mind when listening to "Leave It In The Road," and there's an element of punk fury in song titles like "White Bitch" and "Guess You Gone And Fucked It All Up."
Myers's growling might get a little monotonous, but its combination of anger and humor keeps the CD fun. Meanwhile, Van Campbell's half-crazed drums and splashing cymbals fill out the rest of the sonic color-by-number.
An exception in several ways, the eight-minute opus "All To Hell" adds a bass player, a Hammond B3 player, and horns. Its severe, gritty soulfulness makes it a standout. But the more modest "Stitched In Sin" proves the duo can also put across an affecting ballad without reinforcements. Maybe there's something dense and scary in the water of Port Arthur, TX - Myers's hometown, and Janis Joplin's.
Hear a couple of tracks at their Myspace page or their band website.
Erin Sax Seymour, Good Girl
Erin Sax Seymour's new seven-song set is a mix of old-time country and modern country-rock. Three tracks were recorded live with her band, the rest with producer Stephen Joseph and other studio musicians. Her voice has a little-girl side that suggests the Dolly Parton school of country singing; she also unloads stronger timbres when needed, like in the waltz ballad "What You See In Me."
The songwriting is a little maddening. The CD sounds gorgeous, but the dry syntax of Seymour's lyrics tend to distract attention from her gutsy melodies and vividly emotional music. It makes me think of some other artists, also with female vocals, whom I've written about recently - such as Laura Vecchione and the sadly dormant Great Unknowns - artists who make music in a roughly similar style, but who are more in touch with the raw side of language. Now and then, Seymour's tricky lyrics come across as sharp and clever: "Was the letting go worth the getting over?" But more often, her catchy up-country numbers like "Peace Tonight" as well as her pretty, sensitive singer-songwriter fare (like the title track, which sounds like something off of Dire Straits's Making Movies) suffer from a scarcity of strong words. The musically soulful "Substitute" declares rather meaninglessly, "Ain't no substitute for a broken heart/And drawing that line is so damn hard," and culminates weakly with "Somewhere between your heart and mine/Lies the answers [sp] that we've been denying."
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