Joe Bonamassa – ‘Blues Of Desperation’ Album Review

It’s hard to believe that it’s already over a year since 2014’s excellent ‘Different Shades of Blue’, but then, of course, Joe Bonamassa, has never been very far from the public eye. A relentless touring schedule brought him to the UK twice last year and, of the two live albums released in 2015 (‘live at Radio City Music Hall’ and ‘Muddy Wolf at Red Rocks’), the excellent ‘Muddy Wolf’ found itself listed as one of SonicAbuse’s albums of the year. Like ‘Different Shade of Blue’, ‘Blues of Desperation’, Joe’s twelfth album, features all original material. However, unlike its forebear, the new album is a bone-shaking monster of a record that reasserts the big rock credentials that saw Joe breaking out a flying V guitar to cover the likes of ZZ Top on earlier tours and, from the moment ‘this train’ comes rattling into view, there’s no questioning the huge amount of fun that Joe and his band had in the studio. Astonishingly, given Joe’s impressive back catalogue, ‘Blues of desperation’ goes one louder than everything that has gone before it and the result is a blistering, diverse, adventurous record that underscores the fact that the world has still not seen Joe reach the peak of his potential.

From the moment a huge chord announces the arrival of ‘this train’, it’s clear Joe’s out to rock the very foundations of your home. With Anton Fig returning on drums there was already percussive power to spare and yet Joe (and long-time producer Kevin Shirley) decided to add a second drummer to the line-up (Greg Morrow) with the result that the music has a propulsive, stadium-filling feel from the very off, Joe and his band unleashing a groove that could move the dead. It’s not all about the rhythm, however, and whilst ‘this train’ is a rock monster, Reese Wynan’s excellent piano work and the soulful vocals of Mahalia Barnes, Jade McRaie and Juanita Tippins tether the track to the spirit of the blues even as Joe unleashes a blistering solo that crackles with electricity. Bigger and bolder still is the earth-shattering ‘mountain climbing’, a pile-driving anthem the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Led Zeppelin unleashed ‘when the levee breaks’. It’s impossible to listen to the epic percussive barrage that underpins the song without John Bonham’s hitherto untouchable performance coming vividly to mind and good lord the studio sessions must have been sweaty, loud and epic amounts of fun if these two opening tracks are anything to go by. The pace finally slackens on ‘drive’ as Joe and his band settle into a more relaxed mode for a hypnotic stretch of road-blues that sees the open desert of America flashing past the windows. Referencing the likes of J.J. Cale and Neil Young, ‘drive’ is a beautiful, mesmerising song that stands amongst some of Joe’s most evocative compositions, although its successor keeps it in good company as Joe heads off for on the late night stroll of ‘no good place for the lonely’, a track that meanders through the heat and smoke of the city late at night, with only the neon lights of late-night bars and the tail lights of taxis for company. Elevated by the addition of strings and some mean guitar work, ‘no good place…’ taps into the same filmic vein that Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen achieved on their soundtrack collaborations for Lethal Weapon and Edge of Darkness. Possibly one of the album’s most remarkable tracks is the antipodean grit of the title track which switches between the bleached-bone heat of the verse and the epic, Zeppelin-aping rock of the chorus. A spiritual successor to the monumental ‘ballad of John Henry’ with its psychedelic Theremin excursions and pounding beat, this is Joe at his pulse-quickening best and we’re not even half way through the album. Fortunately, ‘the valley runs low’ sees Joe stripping back to the basics and in acoustic mode, which, after the epic pulse of the title track, provides a much needed respite that recalls the likes of Smokey Robinson’s ‘tracks of my tears’ with its sweet, soulful swing.

Having taken things down a notch, ‘you left me nothin’ but the bill and the blues’ sees Joe having fun with vintage rock ‘n’ roll, channelling his inner Chuck Berry for an awe-inspiring solo and giving plenty of space for Reese to pound the ivories into so much dust. It’s a brilliantly irrepressible track that will send any concert venue into ecstasy only for the gritty blues of ‘distant lonesome train’ to take things up several notches with a tribal beat and extended solo break that is unutterably thrilling. A massive blues rock ballad that grabs the listener from the off and refuses to let go, ‘how deep this river runs’ once again references John Bonham with its gargantuan drum sound whilst the guitar twists and turns between the beats, Joe’s fingers flashing over the fretboard as the track thunders towards its ecstatic climax. It’s back to the heat of the city for the salacious, sax-fuelled ‘livin’ easy’, a track that owes a debt to the dark sleaze of Barry Adamson and David Lynch, before the album draws, all-too-quickly, to a close with the achingly traditional blues of ‘what I’ve known for a very long time’, a glorious, horn-fuelled, slow-blues track that would not sound out of place on a B. B. King record. It is a fitting closer to an album that roams, roughshod, across the vast territories of the blues, and it leaves the listener yearning for more.

Never afraid to follow his muse, Joe Bonamassa has had a remarkable career to this point. That Joe is technically gifted is, of course, without question. What sets Joe apart, however, his not the remarkable level of skill that he achieved, but rather his ability to tap into the source code of the blues and apply it liberally to a wonderfully diverse range of songs. Varied Joe’s work may be, and yet the albums are so beautifully sequenced that there’s always a thread to follow, each one best thought of as a journey, taking the listener on a ride that showcases the blues in all its forms. Yet, for all his past glories, ‘Blues of desperation’ may well be Joe’s masterpiece to date. The sound here is bigger, bolder and brighter than what has come before and it’s clear that, from the first moments of ‘this train’, Joe is firing on all cylinders. Following up ‘different shades of blue’ was no easy feat. A wonderful album in it is own right, ‘different shades…’ paid tribute to the genre, but ‘blues of desperation’ has a wider conceit. Here Joe stamps his authority down in no uncertain terms and, whether it be the late-night revelations of ‘what I’ve known for a very long time’ or the Zeppelin-smashing exploits of ‘how deep this river runs’, the result is nothing short of awesome in the literal sense of the word. It seems hard to believe that a career that saw the early peaks of ‘the ballad of John Henry’ and ‘sloe gin’, is only getting better, but, with each passing year, Joe finds new ways to place his own unique voice into the familiar tropes of the blues, and ‘blues of desperation’ is a relentless tour de force that stands as his most stunningly visceral work yet. Not a moment is wasted as Joe and his band lay waste to the blues with one unforgettable moment irresistibly following another. Forget about ‘blues album of the year’, ‘blues of desperation’ is simply candidate for the album of the year and it’s hard to imagine anyone supplanting this sublime effort.