I love ALEX GOMEZ's CDs. This will be the fourth, and most drily distilled since I got that "Almost Never" back in 2004. ALEX GOMEZ does free-form punk blues that lifts you directly into a second-by-second break-neck ride through his feral slide/voice stream of consciousness.
At no point does he allow the weight of three chords or twelve bars to drag him into any kind of accommodation, denouement, comfort, or release., Each song sets off on a road to hell where he lets his voice and his guitar loose. They go where they go, rasping, swooping, wailing and growling. This is how (in my head) I heard Sam "Lightnin' Hopkins playing the blues all those years ago, completely. stripped of polite concessions to any kind of light entertainment or any possibility of appropriator by the mainstream.
A listener, therefore, must connect or walk on by. GOMEZ is not one to gather in, like Seasick Steve, the temporarily interested thrill seekers on holiday form indie. Dark metal or hard core punk lovers would get it. Long term blues enthusiasts who knew where to leave their archive dignity would get it. As I said, I love it.
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On "Come With Me", seven tracks in, there's a moment where it seems as though he might do a CANNED HEAT sort of boogie - but it;s just a handful of notes that eventually gets a good savaging. And there's a BO DIDDLEY feel to the opening of "Devil Candy". That explodes too, in great style.
But deep down, GOMEZ will piss you off because he just lets go and plays the darkest, meanest blues you are likely to have heard this year. Emotionally and sexually incorrect. Full strength. He also grunts "Pyschobilly" before launching into "Wake Up Call". But that doesn't really help.
http://www.alexgomez.biz
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