Leaving aside the somewhat unfortunate cover, we are confronted with a fantastic release. This “Zombie Nation” is the result of a collaboration between two exceptional blues talents. Elam McKnight already had three albums to his name, including the obscure masterpiece “The Last Country Store”, which dates from 2005. In the same year, Bob Bogdal also released his equally praised “Underneath The Kutzu”. Unfortunately, both albums were somewhat lost to the attention of the general public. The critics' reviews were nevertheless unanimous in praise. This will not change with this release, quite the contrary.
For this collaboration, the two gentlemen went to browse the delicious traditional Mississippi blues for their inspiration and the traditional Delta sound is topped with electric blues from the Hill Country. And damn that this combination seems to work is a major understatement.
For the recordings they received reinforcement from Tom Hambridge (drums), Michaël Saint-Leon (wonderful fingerpicking on opener “Pojo’s Place” and wonderful backing vocals from Kim Morrison.
A straightforward blues sound thunders from the speakers. No frills, loud and direct with a guitar in overdrive and brilliant harmonica work are the common thread through this album. But you also get to hear softer songs with the Resonator in a leading role, nice sliding and whining smoother.
Undressed, acoustically with only the voice and harmonica as support on the absolutely beautiful “19 Days” for example. Rest breaks in an otherwise smashing album with heavy pumping, swinging beats like in “I Hate You”.
But how impressed we are with McKnight's work on the quoted Resonator! that alone in combination with the bar-blues harmonica of Bogdal is of such an exceptional level that we do not hesitate to put this CD forward as one of the best we have heard in this genre in recent years. We can only hope that with this CD the general public will discover the men and also look back for their earlier work. These are bluesmen pur sang and our admiration for this work is great, we hope the same from you.
Credits:
Bob Bogdal - Guitar (Resonator), Harmonica
Tom Hambridge - Drums
Elam McKnight - Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Guitar (Resonator), Vocals
Kim Morrison - Vocals (Background)
Michael Saint-Leon - Guitar
Tracklist:
01. Pojo's Place 04:04
02. Blues Makes Me Happy 05:03
03. Tom Cat Kitten 04:38
04. Zombie-fication 04:43
05. Red Wheel Barrow 02:42
06. 19 Days 02:37
07. No Hard Feelings 05:58
08. I Hate You 03:32
09. Brother to a Stone 04:09
10. Hocus Pocus 04:39
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