There’s plenty to like here, if you’re a fan of the blues.
Clinch! is the new release from Danish quartet The Blues Overdrive. A follow-up to the band’s 2012 debut (which was awarded Debut Album of the Year by German music magazine Wasser Prawda), the new album has ten songs which cover a number of blues bases – the classic Chicago grit, the Mississippi delta groove and atmospheric swamp blues.
“Pistol Blues”, “Rolling Thunder”, “Woman Of Love” (see clip below) and “Living Here Without You” hit a J.J. Cale-type rhythm, full of reverb, a magnetic channel that just keeps on going (try to stop that foot tapping, if you can!). It’s not fancy and that’s the attraction. “Cherry” has a light touch, almost calypso in feel (with Chicago lap steel player Joel Patterson). There’s guitar muscle on “Three Time Lover” (featuring distinguished blues guitarist Duke Robillard*) and “Lay Your Burdon (sic) Down” and plenty of funk and slow build in “Daughter Of The Devil” (also with Robillard) and “Aurora”.
This is a fine blues album which gets to the essence of the spirit of the genre.
The Blues Overdrive are:
Martin Olsen – vocals & guitars
Andreas Andersen – guitars
Thomas Birck – bass & resonator
Lars Heiberg – drums & percussion
Track Listing:
Pistol Blues
Rolling Thunder
Three Time Lover
Woman of Love
Daughter of The Devil
Jealous
Cherry
Lay Your Burdon Down
Living Here Without You
Aurora
Album Credits:
Recorded at Cherry Recording Studios
Mixed at Apparat Studio, Copenhagen by Kristian Gadegaard & Lars Heiberg
All songs written by Martin Olsen except “Daughter of The Devil” written by John Németh
Produced by The Blues Overdrive
* Robillard has had distinguished solo career, toured and recorded with Tom Waits, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Bob Dylan. Robillard played a key role on Dylan’s pivotal album from 1998 Time Out of Mind which received three Grammy awards.
