It is perhaps, in part at least, the process of modernisation and homogenisation, sanitisation and bastardisation that has taken place in blues music in recent decades that has created a hankering for the real deal, or at least a modern take on the real deal. And that is what Cam Cole does so well: create blues that moves with the times yet never loses the spirit of the original sound. As I said, the real deal!
And, as this single perfectly proves, not just blues, but blues with attitude, blues with a rock drive, blues with fire, blues that stomp and spit and groove and grind.
‘Get Up Ya Honky Tonk,’ the latest sonic slice of his one-person quest to restablish the genre’s authenticity and excitement, sees him pushing even harder into the sounds that lie at the genre’s extremes; guitars are raw and rabid, beats predatory, vocals coming at you like a message on a shortwave radio, more conveying intent than actual communication. This is not for the faint-hearted, and I suspect that the purists will have a few issues…good, down with the gatekeepers, set fire to the comfort zones, thwart expectation.
It’s blues beating with a grunge heart, roots music made by Palm Desert stoners, rock music stripped back to its very essence and then tipped in acid…in every sense of the meaning… so that it is visceral, unvarnished, psychedelic and seductive.
It’s raw, it’s real… It’s remarkable.
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