BB & The Bullets – Wrong Side of the River
New Zealand is known for superb country & blues music & this tight unit BB & The Bullets are no exception. Their opening tune “Midnight Rider” (not the Allman Brothers classic) is well-arranged blues-rock with lots of adhesive. The vocals are aggressive & raucous with the percussion clever — wooden sticks snap in my right speaker & are glorious. It’s the little things.
The band doesn’t project anything completely new, improved or impressive except for their own ingenuity in pushing forth an old genre with clever musical applications. They are a high voltage unit & judging from their performance a confident bunch (they should get a song or two placed in the New Zealand TV show “The Brokenwood Mysteries” that features excellent country & blues placement throughout the show).
There are 11 blues pieces on the shores of the Wrong Side of the River (Dropped Oct 2/Overton Music/39:51) but that’s exactly where we want to be if the music is there. BB (Brian Baker) keeps the energy level high, the temperature hot & “Freak Show” is just that – heavy on the drums, soulful in the vocal conglomeration & wiry lead guitar that shoots off sparks into the darkness. What should come off as a novelty song is a succulent carnival blues rocker.
Produced by Mr. Baker (lead guitar) this effort is the band’s second album. This is not a huge undertaking; it’s basically a trio with BB & featuring Brad McMillan (drums/bgv) & Stu Duncan (bass/bgv). Their sound is full, with marvelous blues accents. The songs aren’t rooted in the Delta, Clarksville, Memphis or Chicago – we’re below down under. But these boys have something coursing through their veins that have conviction. More importantly, they understand how to add drops of a pop potion into their blues recipe & still maintain a stream of blues coarseness. Watch those drops though.
Impressed? They cover Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green’s classic “Oh Well” & they accomplish this with muscle, vitality & verve. The cover of this classic is 3-minutes & 40 seconds superb. BB’s guitar is razor-sharp; Stu’s bass shoulders in like a 300-pound bar bouncer & Brad’s drums are a runaway subway car on a green-lighted open track.
“Sometimes You Lose Yourself” is a cross between Tito & Tarantula with its cryptic, darker tint of The Blasters (“Dark Night”). BB never gets too ahead of the blues curves. But the final songs unlike ZZ Top, add too much pop salt to their water – they’re more mainstreamed it dilutes the blues bite. Just be more cautious & aware.
Good B&W images of the band on the CD inner package would have been a better front cover. More compelling. A blues image should not be a cartoon logo.
Highlights – “Midnight Rider,” “Freak Show,” “Wrong Side of the River,” “Get a Little Real,” “Oh Well,” “Sometimes You Lose Yourself” & “The Buddha Song.”
Image courtesy of BB & the Bullets. CD @ https://nixonstreetrecordings.nz/bb-and-the-bullets