Bellhound Choir
„Imagine The Crackle“
Blues, Stoner. 2016

• Black Vinyl + promo CD
• 1st press, limited
• Bad Afro Records
• AFROLP049, AFROCD049
• new

With all due respect, this is blues rock at its finest! From Denmark? Christian Hede Madsen? Doesn't he do stoner rock as the singer and guitarist of Pet The Preacher? Yes, he's the one who gives us fine blues rock. Pure and simple, no prog. Blues rock? Not just that. Violin here and some stoner there.

The core of the album is dark and melancholic, like a dystopian journey through (Northern) Europe's future wasteland. "Bad Dreams," with its violin and slidly played guitar, transports us to a bar in the American South. "No Roads Left to Follow" simply sweeps us away with its powerful rhythm. Rock, tranquility, rock. "Slow Pain" begins slowly, transporting me to a dark bar, cigars, and whiskey. And then Camilla Munch, the woman on the Rhodes, joins in, and it works perfectly. Not because she makes the song prettier or serves as decoration, but because she provides a contrasting element to the raw guitars and the male vocals. She expands the track's expressive possibilities. I enjoy this song loudly through headphones. In fact, I can hardly single out any one of the nine songs; I like them all very much. "No Roads Left to Follow," "Slow Pain," "Havoc," and "Savior." And especially the one where Camilla Munch sings.

This is blues, its traditional language expanded by dark timbres, stoner riffs, violin, Rhodes, and more modern song structures. Thoughtful structures, like the thickening of instrumentation and dynamic shifts between tranquility and rock. No matter which category it falls into, the music works. And "modern" isn't a mark of quality; it simply broadens the expressive range of the blues.

The photos are all from my CD. The rights to all motifs, logos, texts and fonts that can be seen in the photos are of course owned by the copyright holder.

TheProgThief
©12.04.2024