Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Blues Pills
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2016
Length: 40:08
Rating: 3.5/5
Blues Pills, a fresh discovery with unabashed leanings toward classic-rock-based revivalism, spiked with a hefty dose of bluesy soul, dropped their second studio album, »Lady In Gold«, in August 2016. The band hasn’t shaken off that demonic charm, that psychedelically erotic tangle of devilry, the occult and madness, on »Lady In Gold« either. The album title is a twisted take on the »reaper«, as in death. That way the band steers clear of the worn-out, threadbare phrases that have always stirred up questions about life and death, which is what fuels the new songs this time around.
The new album’s look comes from the “mother of psychedelic art”, Dutch artist Marijke Koger-Dunham, who once designed costumes and album artwork for The Beatles and Cream, and painted the guitars of George Harrison and Eric Clapton. Blues Pills and Marijke only tweaked the colors of the original artwork a little for the new cover.
Singer Elin’s vocal gold and feisty, charismatic punch are as untarnished as ever on the new album, and her delivery keeps all the fire of the band’s art-culture message burning. Still, compared to their self-titled debut from 2014, Blues Pills have this time served up a somewhat different musical dish.
This time the band wove keyboards much more thoroughly into the arrangements. Mellotron, electric piano, Hammond organ and even classical piano all cut in more tightly, and in the production the band went looking for an even better balance between the building blocks of the sound. The guitars have been pushed back a bit, and the new album doesn’t offer even a single moment of the crackling, slightly dirty rawness built mostly on the cutting noise of piercing guitar phrases that you could feel on the debut. There are definitely fewer psychedelic, theatrical guitar excursions than on the debut, though the instrumental guitar passage in the closing Elements And Things doesn’t dodge one of those moments. The rhythmic structures are simplified too, carved out in an even more one-dimensional, almost danceable way, as the opening title track and later Gone So Long make clear. In shaping the final form of the songs, the band also paid more attention to arranging extra vocal harmonies, which fill the available space in the lead phrases of the choruses and/or pre-choruses. Elin also approaches her improvisational flights more thoughtfully than on the debut, but even so, here and there her inspiration from Aretha Franklin sparks even brighter in her well-tuned soul acrobatics. The band even conjures up moments that can sound gospel (Bad Talkers) or Motown-ish (Rejection). Artistically, »Lady In Gold« is definitely a step into exploring new musical horizons for the band, and in that sense a stylistic leap away from the debut. That doesn’t mean they’ve scrapped the punchy riff rawness of the first record altogether, and despite the softer production, Burned Out and the downright “charged” dance of demons in the excellent Won’t Go Back are especially friendly to it.
Experimenting with style in search of a recognizable, unique musical calling card is always a tough job. Especially at a time when the world’s music space is insanely crowded. In that respect, »Lady In Gold« is a bit of a double-edged sword. It’s still an extremely high-quality effort, with not a single moment of expression that somebody hadn’t already invented and presented long ago, but on the flip side, it shows the courage of a band that knows deep down that only this kind of experimenting can keep it growing in a healthy artistic way. Whether this album is just an evolutionary step for the band, to be followed by a move toward a stronger stylistic transformation, is something the future will tell.
Blues Pills – Lady In Gold (official video):
Line-up
Elin Larsson – vocals
Dorian Sorriaux – guitar
Zach Anderson – bass guitar
André Kvarnström – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Tobias Winterkorn – mellotron
Rickard Nygren – organ
Per Larsson – piano
Don Alsterberg – xylophone
CHOIR:
Carl Lindvall
Elin Larsson
Ellinor Svensson
Sofie Lee Johansson
Production
Don Alsterberg
Track list
1. Lady In Gold
2. Little Boy Preacher
3. Burned Out
4. I Felt A Change
5. Gone So Long
6. Bad Talkers
7. You Gotta Try
8. Won’t Go Back
9. Rejection
10. Elements And Things
