By Monk
Ten thousand years ago Finland, like most of northern Europe, was still the grip of the latest ice age. When the glaciers started to melt, they turned into vast icy torrents flowing into the newly formed Baltic Sea. As the millennia passed, one of these ancient riverbeds became known as the Mätäjoki, or the Rotten River, long at the centre of much of Finnish folklore. It is from this mud-infused source that the titular Rotten River Blues Band naturally take their own inspiration and influence, with their roots firmly planted in said tributary’s upstream swamps, as well as others around the Überverse, as this third album demonstrates.
Musically, RRBB’s closest musical comparator is perhaps ZZ Top, as the riff and thump of opener ‘The Deal’ firmly and defiantly evokes the Texas trio’s ‘Tejas’ and ‘Tres Hombres’ eras, especially in its mudhole-stomping main mien and dirty lowdown groove, which also evokes the likes of another legendary Texan blues maestro, Stevie Ray Vaughn.
‘Seven Doors’ sees the band adopt a punkier, sleazier approach, which evokes a sense of The Only Ones jamming with The Wildhearts, while ‘Good Day To Go Down’ is a proper old-school barroom brawler, a rambunctious romper-stomper of a riff combined with a sweet little solo that is as laconic as it contrasting to the rest of the song.
‘Don’t Care For The Prize’ is a one of those slow-burning foot-stompers that just broils and bubbles, while ‘Riding With Lady Luck’ takes us on a languid open-topped ride along the highway to a lonesome cowboy bar where Fleetwood Mac are jamming with Dr Feelgood while those Van Zandt boys stand at the side of stage tuning up and itching to join in the action.
‘Bad Dog’ sees them livening things up again, getting you imagining what might have happened if The Ramones had played da blooze, while ‘Shooting Stars’ is a good old-fashioned rockabilly style dance tune guaranteed to get any floor filled with swirling skirts and stomping DMs. Unfortunately, ‘Nights Of Karnak’ sounds like a bit of a filler, before the band redeem themselves with the doorstep drinker of ‘The River Is My Home’, with its blend of folk-infused acoustic melody and whiskey-soaked slide sounding more like an Irish ceilidh swingabout than a blues song, before finishing off with an accurate interpretation of that old-fashioned ‘Shuffle In C’, which brings things to a suitably rounded conclusion.
I’ve been swimming in the Rotten River since the band it spawned released their declarative debut album back in 2019. I’m glad to immerse myself in the ‘Holy Waters’ of this particular delta once again, even if it’s gonna take me a week to get the mud outta my trunks…
- ‘Holy Waters’ is released on 19 January.
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