Graham Reid | | <1 min read
When this whisky-fueled, profanity spoutin' and somewhat misanthropic Texas singer-songwriter – who joins the dots between one-man electric blues and psychobilly rock - drops the energy levels he offers some terrific songs: Never Comin' Home is in the Kristofferson tradition of worldweary reflection and tells a convincing story in the manner of Hayes Carll or Steve Earle (the vet on Nam Weed).
He's a 30s troubadour on the harmonica-wheeze of I'm Troubled traveling down the same dirt roads as Woody.
But his major setting is furious metal-edge blues dealing with booze, blues, women, death and the Devil which comes off as an implosion of early White Stripes, George Thorogood, Hasil Adkins, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins.
This is no bad thing (he haunts the old Jack of Diamonds and convincingly pulls off Howlin' Wolf's Backdoor Man) and when he's got a mood on – which is often – he seethes with pure menace and fury (Church Point Girls who done him wrong and “put a crack in a perfect sky” is gunna pay, fer sure).
But he's torn between the dark side (the death-metal maelstrom of Around the Bend) and salvation, and the three bonus tracks are all old gospel songs; Amazing Grace, When I Die and John the Revelator.
Which ever side he dips on, Biram is worth hearing and now about 10 albums into his career we can guess he ain't gunna change no-how.
Good.
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