There are a fair few ‘Old style’ Delta Blues players around at the moment, many of them ploughing the usual Delta Blues trough of the originals and a few taking slide and resonator/Dobro into new dimensions. K.K. Hammond is incorporating many of the old forms into her music but delivering something that is unique and rather wonderful.
Her music is dark and moody with a great sense of melancholy but she also manages to bring youth and a twisted viewpoint that makes the music incredibly listenable. Her lyrics are twisted and very definitely from the dark side – none better than ‘Til Death’, where she sings a Hawaiian lament, telling a tale of how she came to kill her lover, all sweetness and corruption. The title track itself is probably the best track on the album, along with ‘Anhedonia’.
Her voice is much lighter than the darkness of her subject matter, an occasion trill in the long notes, and it sits as a brilliant counterpoint to the slow and deliberate rhythms that pervade the album. Her playing of the National Resonator is clean and the slide playing simple but an integral part of her songs. There is so much space in the recording, height and width with a deliciously small voice/guitar at the centre so that you get an impression of listening from a great distance. Very effective, especially with headphones/pods.
K. K. Hammond clearly understands the music of the Mississippi Delta but she has taken it on and delivered a very personal view of the form and I found myself listening to the album all through, time after time. Quite superb.
