I have to say that I like Big Boy Bloater but I have never really ‘got’ his style of Blues/swing. This album though; I get and I like too.
This album is really a close look at his life and the way it may have gone off the rails when his last album ‘Luxury Hobo’ was released in 2016 – to quote the man himself “I guess a lot happened on the Luxury Hobo tour. Maybe after the depression, my mind’s a bit more open and turned on to things, so I have observed more.”
That is certainly the case on the opening track where he lays down a diatribe against our modern habit for throwing a different pill down our throats for anything that ails us – real or imagined. In the wrong hands it would be ugly and spiteful but here it is a solid bit of rockaboogie with a killer riff and all the angst in the words.
The album focusses on the negatives in today’s life but it never comes over as depressive or stroppy. ‘Friday Night’s Alright For Drinking’ looks at our habit of getting shitfaced at the start of the weekend and leads into ‘The Saturday Night Desperation Shuffle’ – a fine shuffle dedicated to the chase after a mate so common in towns and villages all over the country. One of my favourite tracks is ‘Unnaturally Charming’ – a song with a real noir feel about it, very Hitchcockian as it describes the guy who might have been a serial killer while ‘Mouse Organ’ has the feel of Tom Waits deranged jazz to it. Bloater’s voice is hard edged and expressive and the LiMiTS show themselves to be extremely capable, swinging from punk riffs to swing and Blues with ease.
All told, a fine album that can be delved into time and again and I would say it’s the best thing Bloater has done yet.
