Black Bone Child - Alligator

If you were a casual reader of the Ripple Effect, you might think that we were members of Black Bone Child.  I mean, simply search the archives and you’ll find more column inches devoted to this band than any other that has ever graced the Ripple pages.  If we were any less confident in the rollicking, barnstorming brand of modern rock, swampy blues that these cats churn out, we may even begin to wonder if you waveriders could get tired of reading about them.

Fortunately, we don’t think about it that hard.  And just as fortunately, the industrious Donny James and Kenneth M. just keep on cranking out one glorious burner after another. 

Now these cats went ahead and took the D.I.Y. ethic of hard work and diligence just one step beyond, releasing two CD’s of new material on the same day.  My Ripple brethren, The Pope, already reviewed the jaw-dropping, stunning acoustic affair that was Take You Blind.  Now it’s my turn to try and find the words to summarize the total victory of groove and glory that is Alligator.

Joined in their home, White Door Studio, by guitarist, Jason King and drummer Steve Hudson, Alligator finds a band building off the momentum they created with their gobsmacker of a debut and upping the intensity to a whole new level.   That’s not to say that Alligator is an entirely new musical beast.  It’s not.  Rather, Alligator follows right on the heels of the debut, building on the strengths of their performance and upping the ante big time for what’s to follow.

“Run Away,” kicks us off right off the get-go, thunderously loud and heavy, as the band jump right into a monstrous riff.  Present is that definitive Black Bone Child, subterranean low and heavy bass tone of Kenny M.  Present is the throaty soulful vocals of Donny James, more confident and engaging than ever.  And present is the battering assault on the drums that is “Tucky” Steve and the added intensity of “Whiskey” Jason ripping the frets off his six-string.   This is a full-on, dropped-into-the-swamp, rock and roll event.  Listen to the flourishes of muddy guitar at the end of each stanza.  My God, listen to that bass tone when it gets the time to shine alone.  Feel the percussive force of the drums.  Don’t listen to it, feel it I say!  This is about as intense an opening song as I’ve heard in a while.

I don’t normally talk about production in a review, but since this whole thing is a studio-in-the-backyard, D.I.Y. effort I gotta say that the boys have grown in the studio as well as in the performance.  This is an album that rewards deep listening, paying attention to the recording, mixing and production.   On “Run Away” alone we get a perfect mix that just blasts the funk of the bass right into the front of the sound without drowning the vocals or guitars.   Subtle guitar ticks and flourishes abound.    The drumming and percussion are impeccably tight, in your face when it’s supposed to be, and lurking in the background when it serves the song.  Everything just sounds bigger on this album. The bass is bigger, the guitars, the drums. And when I say bigger, I mean huge—like ten foot tall Gibsons with telephone lines for strings.

Black Bone Child always had their own sound, more than a fusion of their influences.  If “Run Away,” attacked like the best White Stripes song you’ve always wanted to hear, the guitar tone of  “Be Your Man,” brings on visions of the more bluesier Zeppelin.   Another terror of a song, this sums up all that Black Bone Child is.  Following an attention-grabbing drum intro, the guitars layer on, open-bodied and full.  The band launches into a melody that instantly grabs my inner ear before the whole thing stops on a dime and a blazing guitar slices through the mix, shooting the song off like some swamp, mud-beast rising from the murky water.  What we got now is a foot-stomping, ass-shaking, bring-on-the-sweat, groover.   Having seen this song performed live, I can tell you that none of its passion got lost in the studio.  The boys play it as if they were on stage performing to 10,000 fans.  I can almost imagine Kenny’s right foot in constant motion, stomping out the beat.

In fact, that can be said of the whole album.  Nothing got lost from the stage to the studio here, every song brings that packed-club intensity.  And best of all, despite its bracing attack, Alligator still maintains all the warmth and intimacy of the best of Black Bone Child.  “You Oughta Know,” unleashes another wave of escaped-from-the-marshy-bog rock and roll.  Donny’s voice is in fine form as the band bash out another bluesy, garage monster, with a vocal/guitar chorus sure to convert the uninitiated.   

No review of this album could exist without special mention of “Baby Baby.”  Yeah, I know it’s self-serving, but when the band debut’s a song on our very own radio show, playing it live acoustic on-the-air just one day after writing it, well, fuck it, that’s special.  Turns out that “Baby Baby” is one hell of a song, Ripple involvement or not.  With Kenny blowing his lungs out on harmonica, Donny soulfully rasping over some scratching guitar and handclaps, “Baby Baby” is enough to cause the whole damn barn to ignite.   Throw in some serious string-bending guitar breaks, killer harmony vocals from Kenny, and a verse that just begs for audience screaming, and we may have the definitive Black Bone Child statement.  The encapsulation of all that the band brings in a two minutes and forty-four seconds of driving intensity. 

I said earlier that Alligator was released at the same time as Take You Blind, so you may wonder why it’s taken us so long to review it.  Simply put, having both Black Bone Child albums come to our door on the same day was just too much.  Both Pope and I blew a mass of brain cells as our steamy man-love affair for these guys went into overdrive.  Take You Blind, was such a passionate, intense album that neither of us could imagine anything ever standing next to it.  Finally, with the passage of time, I could get Alligator into the CD drive and give it a fair listen.  And I’m happy to say, that Take You Blind has a worthy companion.  An album that gets fuller and more addictive with each listen.

Gents, I raise my glass to you.  Next whiskey’s on me.

--Racer

Buy here:

Black Bone Child - Take You Blind

When a band kicks out an acoustic album, the immediate reaction from the masses is that the songs are going to be softer, slower, more ambient pieces of music that would suit itself better played in front of a campfire than a bar filled with whiskey chugging patrons. Well, that’s not the way Black Bone Child see things, and I expect that most who lend ears to this disc will feel the same way. Take You Blind is the duo’s second album and yes, it’s all acoustic. Donny and Kenny holed up by their lonesome’s, strumming the six strings, clapping hands, shaking tambourines, and singing their asses off . . . and amazingly, stripped down in this oh-so-natural blues-y form, the boys haven’t lost any of the heavy elements that made their self titled debut sound so ominous.

Made up of pieces of the debut album, the follow up heavy electric album, Alligator, and a few songs that live as acoustic entities only, Take You Blind is everything that I love about the blues and blues-based rock. This disc has got groove, soul, an earthy richness to it, catchy lyrics and melody lines, and the music is flat out heavy. There are only a handful of acoustic albums that have struck such a dense chord for me, for instance, Zeppelin III and Jar of Flies, and even those had more studio trickery to them to be truly acoustic albums. Take You Blind may have one plugged in bass line through the entire half hour set, is stripped down to the music’s most organic elements, yet has layers to it helping the production quality be more than a truly old school Robert Johnson-esque recording.

Black Bone Child revisits a few songs from the self titled album, stripping the songs down while retaining everything that made the songs infectious in the first place. “Mine” has that same swagger as the electrified version, gritty with a touch of class, and still catchy as all hell. The song would make a great theme song for any silver screen scene of a cocky cowboy strutting into a bar, a hush falling on everyone in the establishment, every woman’s head turning in unison, and you can imagine the rest. This is a song with some serious attitude, kinda’ touching on that loose Texas boogie that ZZ Top played to perfection. “Time Pass Me By” follows along the same line . . . upbeat and grooving, also with a hefty amount of swagger, and all condensed into a song that barely exceeds two minutes. Gotta’ love that! No superfluous lines of lyric need to be added, no extended guitar jam, just a short and concise exercise of musical brilliance.

“Baby Baby” opens the disc with a barn burner of a song. The duo is clicking in a perfect harmonization of musical souls. There are a number of elements that make this song so damn compelling, and it starts with the melody . . . nothing fancy, just straight forward and infectious, so much damn hook that you’ll invariably find your golf ball stuck in the brush amidst all who have listened to this song before you. The vocal harmonies are fantastic as the boys feed off of each other and the fun that they had making this recording are capture in full effect. Listen to all of the subtle things going on in here . . . a little break where the guitars drop out and we’re left listening to the vocals, a dying harmonica note, and shimmering tambourine. Then, through all of the hoots and howls, you’ll note a laugh or two. This is one of those songs that, in time, will be a standard tune played at many a ho-down.

“Tell Me I’m Wrong” is as epic as I’ve ever heard this band come across in song. The tune is Zeppelin-esque in a “When the Levee Breaks” kinda’ way. Heavy blues, but not your standard blues . . . more ominous and dark, full of loneliness and suffering, filled with interesting changes and beautiful vocal harmonies. It’s a song dripping with emotion and one that goes well with a smooth shot of whiskey. The wail of the harmonica sounds like a passing train whistle as we sitting in a box car riding the rail back to wherever we left our hearts. Though not electrically heavy, this song has a serious emotional weight to it that would make some of the finest singer/songwriters want to break their gear in frustration. It’s definitely may favorite song on the album and one I can listen to over and over again . . . this may actually be in my top ten of songs.

If you’re heard the first Black Bone Child disc then it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the songs on Take You Blind are catchy and well crafted tunes. The biggest surprise certainly has to come with the immense heaviness that an acoustic set can carry. Is it the tuning? Is it the gear? I’m willing to bet it’s in the hands of the musicians themselves. There’s certainly something magical in the way these two guys can sit down and hammer out a song, and make it sound as intense as they do. Every song on here is solid if not great. The reconfigured songs from the debut add a new wrinkle to the already familiar; the Alligator songs are fresh and give the listener an idea of what’s to come, while a song like“Tell Me I’m Wrong” was meant solely for the acoustic medium. To add electrified anything to these latter songs would ruin the organic mystery of them and hats off to the boys for recognizing that and leaving them in the state that they’re in. And, as if all of this wasn’t enough, the album gets better and better with every listen. At no point will you want to stop playing this CD as you’re traveling around town, and you may not even get out of your car once you get to your destination.  -  Pope JTE

www.blackbonechild.com