Black Stone Cherry have always been a force to reckon with, but their last album ‘Kentucky’, still barely a year old, was the album for me where it all came together perfectly. Going back to their roots to create it paid off in spades and they produced an album full of real Rock and Soul with a Southern grace and harmony few bands this side of the seventies could dream of mustering. Their follow up was always going to be an interesting proposition – would they try to recapture the magic and elemental Blues Rock of Kentucky, follow another path or just add to their legacy? Would the Blues EP ‘Black To Blues’ that sits in-between ‘Kentucky’ and this release give any clues.
Well you guys will get to find out on 20th April when mascot release ‘Family Tree’ and I’m lucky enough to have been listening to it solidly for a couple of weeks already, and whilst I normally like to rush out a review I’ve found myself savoring this one. This my friends is an album that will take Black stone Cherry to the big leagues, not of course that they aren’t already there in places like the UK.
From the count in and funky Blues riff of ‘Bad Habit,’ a song with a glorious breakdown, all the way through to the last notes of the title track ‘Family Tree’ Black Stone Cherry manage to create an album without a misstep or any extraneous or unnecessary adornments. Everything here is essential to the sound and every song deserves it’s spot, and it’s not often you can say that about an album, especially in 2018. There’s a lovey funky feel as we said to the opener and a wonderful 80’s ZZ Top vibe to first single ‘Burnin” -a song that has a real Allmans feel to the gloriously melodic breakdown.
It’s partly that ear for detail and partly the gentle re-infusion of the Blues that makes this album so wonderfully on point, I mean listen to the underlying keys on ‘New Kinda Feelin” and the laid back economy of the drums the add the wonderful vocal, roaming bass and searing but subdued guitar and you feel and hear a band with all members giving their all, and in doing so creating a sound that’s so much more than the sum of its parts.
In the past Black Stone Cherry might have blasted out the intro to ‘Carry Me On Down the Road’ and upped the guitar but its so much more at home in its skin as a gentler Southern rambling blues. ‘My Last Breath’ the first down-tempo song here is all the better for it’s stripped back simplicity, Black Stone Cherry have always played a great ballad but here they’ve uncovered an anthem to conjure real tears, it’s a glorious song.
‘Southern Fried Friday Night’ reminds you that there’s still a party to attend to and the raucous chorus has the commercial appeal of Kid Rock but with added grit rather than gloss, and it’s all the better for it. ‘Dancin’ in the Rain’ that follows rides a Bluesy swagger and grows in stature as it twists and turns whilst ‘Ain’t Nobody’ makes you want to get up and dance to it’s Southern shimmy, before ‘James Brown’ really lays down some amped-up stuttering Soul like only Black Stone Cherry can. It’s that fluidity and ability to meld influences that makes this band so special.
‘You Got the Blues’ perhaps the heaviest offering here comes across like a freight train and sports a stuttering chorus that cries out “play me loud and play me live.” It’s followed by ‘I Need Woman’ which is another of my favourites here, it has it all – some searing guitar, mile-high groove, sing-along chorus and its another that makes you want to ‘shake your thang!’ ‘Get Me Over You’ ramps the blues, and rides it all the way down home,it’s another seriously good tune and has perhaps the most interesting breakdown on the album.
The final word goes to title track ‘Family Tree’ which pulls it all together in a single song, it’s heartfelt, it’s built on a great groove, and you drink it all in like the smoothest Kentucky Bourbon. It’s a great song to end a great album and the guitar is to die for.
If you loved ‘Kentucky’ as much as I did this album takes us further and is even better. There’s a real variety here too and yes, that step into the Blues has helped redefine their sound somewhat. This is Black Stone Cherry’s most mature album to date and by that I don’t mean that there’s a lack of fireworks, more that there’s a real wisdom at play – a great balance and authenticity to the sound that only comes with years. This is an important Rock album, not just the best by these Kentucky rockers so far.
