Provogue (label)
10 February 2009 (released)
10 March 2009
If Joe Bonamassa gets any better I am going to have to learn a new language just to find some more superlatives.
To put it simply, he is the most vital and exciting talent around the Blues and rock scene today – and that in a scene that boasts some stunning talent, not least on his label.
From the opening bars of the title track as he shimmers into a stomping and unstoppable riff you can hear the sheer confidence and inner power of a guitarist and musician at the top of his game – the track takes on a huge presence and you are pulled along in his wake like so much flotsam.
As he slows it down for a brooding and intense version of 'Stop’ you can hear his unique playing and picking, completely in sync with his heartfelt vocal performance – there really isn’t anyone who can make you feel the Blues like him at the moment.
He proves that he has more chops in him as he sets up a funky, N’Orleans style version of Tom Waits 'Jockey Full Of Bourbon’ with some delicate plunking alongside his strident and fulsome guitar workout.
There is a feeling throughout this album that he is celebrating the middle-class blue collar workers who made America an industrial juggernaut but he has tongue in cheek rather than the hectoring style of Springsteen or Mellencamp and he also rocks like a bastard when the song calls for it – 'Story Of A Quarryman’ has granite in its riffs and gelignite in the breaks.
'Happier Times' finds him in a more reflective place but even here the power and delicacy of his playing is simply magnificent.
The entire album just turns up one gem after another so that by the end of the piece you are just goggled eyed and slack jawed in sheer amazement.
Five years ago I saw Joe Bonamassa playing a tiny club in Barnet and I have seen him progress through the Borderline to the Shepherds Bush Empire and later this year I hope I will see him at the Albert Hall. Incredible progression for a guy who is still only 24 but on the evidence of this album he could be the future of Blues/Rock as well as its best current proponent.
