Blues has always had a close connection with realms beyond this one, something to do with its association with the dark gods of the genre’s African origins, I suspect. But even in more recent times, the blues still seems perhaps overly concerned with devils and souls, crossroads, and the struggles of life…and death, but then, something so firmly rooted in its musical DNA is going to be hard to shake off.
So, it isn’t too unexpected to find Rosetta West taking death as a theme for their latest album Night’s Cross. Better, indeed, to talk about such universal subjects than give us more rock and roll self-aggrandizement or pop shallowness.
Not that they take a melancholic or maudlin view of things, and there can be a certain nobility to be found as we face our inevitable demise, and that spirit is found in their music, too. And, after all, we will all face it sooner or later, so why not discuss it.
If songs like the opener “Save Me” are full of the electric traditions of the genre, raw and ragged and wonderfully so, then “Dora Lee” is positively boogiesome; not only that, it sets up a wonderful dynamic by wandering between energetic passages and more understated sonics. If “You’ll Be the Death of Me” adopts an authentic style that we don’t hear in the music of these days, spacious, emotive, and echoing those early blues pioneers and progenitors, then “Cold Winter Moon” is almost a folk ballad, the other stand of people’s music.
Even if you are not a blues aficionado, or perhaps especially if you aren’t, you should give this album a spin or three. It offers many different takes on the genre, old and new, authentic and adventurous. It also wanders across the usual generic boundaries and finds the sounds and styles that have bled into the genre over the years.
Death might be a difficult subject to contemplate, but at least it has a brilliant soundtrack!
