Artist: Blanche
Album: Little Amber bottles
Label: Loose Records
Year: 2007
Reviewed by: Woodstock Slim
"Little Amber Bottles" is in my 2nd place for best album of 2007 2nd only to "the Reminder" by Feist. They not even in the same genre or nothing but it's just the way the album takes me, I guess. I love great Americana and it has to twang and it has to twang up there with The Handsome family, Johnny Dowd and M. Ward. It's hard to keep up with those names but greats like Micha P. Hinson does with two hands tied behind his back. It was refreshing to hear Blanche pull this together on "Little Amber Bottles", phow!
"In the fair city of Detroit, nestled among the garage-rock nooks and country crannies, lurks the music of Blanche. Husband and wife Dan and Tracee Miller trade intense and haunting vocals over an uneasy sea of pedal steel, banjo, raw guitar sounds, and sparse, driving drumming. The moods created in the songs seem to define Blanche. Some songs are sad and pretty, while others have a powerful, spooky feel. The melodies trick you into singing along with tales of
superstitions, garbage picking, fading trust, and feelings of lost hope. The sound combines the intense desperation of the Gun Club, the sincere sadness of the Carter Family, and the creepy playfulness of Lee Hazlewood.
Family Tree: The Millers are joined by Feeny, who provides the perfect balance of eeriness and teariness to his pedal steel work; drummer Lisa jaybird Jannon, who uses a combination of brushes and maracas to complement her pared-down style, and banjo player/auto harpist Patch Boyle who, while on stage, sits in his favorite chair plucking away in his own world Blanche has come together from the well-preserved ashes of singer-guitarist Dan John Miller’s previous two bands.
The seminal country-punk band Goober & the Peas released two acclaimed albums while touring incessantly throughout the U.S. and Europe, with artists such as Morphine and Uncle Tupelo." - clipped this off their website bio, was impossible for me to it write quite as well.
All you feel as you go is the haunting Bass playing of Tracee Mae and it really gets inside all your cracks. "Little Amber Bottles" is one of those albums that every time you listen to it you hear a new song, a new riff,a new vocal harmony a few notes here and there while all along being caressed by Little Jack Lawrence's melancholy Banjo. I get the feeling it took them just over 40 years to make this record. Every single time I hear it it sounds completely different and more entertaining in ways I could not count. What a mind blowing experience, it's like owning a box
set!
Oh, Oh! did I say they had the best looking Website I had ever visited. For real!
