Chemako – Chemako 1.18.13

Chemako

Chemako

Ultra Sound

BluesWax Rating: 2 out of 10

Categorize Under WTF Blues

There are several different styles of blues albums; this one lands under “confusing.” It’s not that you can’t label it with a certain style, it’s just that it is so inconsistent from one song to the next you don’t know what you are listening to. The vocalists even change from male to female almost from song to song. There needs to be some sort of a foothold to steer this ship and bring the listener somewhere.

The album is a project of three friends getting together and putting an album out. Sounds innocent enough until you have to sit through it. The odd part is that most of the album has these women singing, yet they aren’t pictured in the album jacket. The two songwriters are, but three women who make a large portion of the album don’t get pictured at all. I guess they missed press picture day. Overall somebody had to take the lead and make this project smooth. It’s one thing to have fun with friends, but remember that it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and you may be wearing Milk Bone underwear.

One of the better songs here is the Lightnin’ Hopkins-ish “Dry Your Tears.” It’s a loose blues piece with Jimmy Ragazzon on the vocals and harp. It’s a lazy song that you could just lay back to and not have a care in the world about. The opener, “Red Diamond Train,” is a strong song with the banjo plucking the way and Shan Kowert’s dark vocals leading to a swampy run of rail. Annie Acton brings her “Tears for Breakfast” and it’s a soulful tune you could easily listen to on this album.

On the other side you have to dig through songs like “Let It Burn Wild,” which sounds like Kenny Loggins’ “Return to Pooh Corner.” Loggins’ song will forever give me nightmares. Why record a song that sounds so similar?!? The lullaby song of the disc goes to “Save the Moon.” Someone thought to put it in the middle of the disc at song number six. Not a good choice. This song makes you stop the disc quickly. Already two tragic songs in the first six! Not good odds boys.

Again, it’s been said before, making an album is a privilege not a right. Focus on what you what to say and say it, ’cause the only statement that this album left me with was “umm…”

Kyle M. Palarino is a contributing editor at BluesWax.