Description
Review by Graham Blackley
Aussie acoustic blues trio Blues Angels, featuring the talents of Tom Flood, Cec Bucello and Frank Russell, have played a host of festivals including: Taste of Avoca, St Albans Folk Festival, Australian National Blues Festival, Dorrigo Folk & Bluegrass Festival, and Floodfest.
On the excellent fourteen-track Devil Don’t Believe the band display a wonderfully inventive and playful approach to roots music.
For instance, on the delicious and quirky slice of “secular Gospel” Pie In The Sky, they embrace ragged 60’s style sundrenched organic psychfolk, roll out plenty of spicy blues harp and manage to lodge the central melody for all eternity in the memory banks of the unsuspecting listener.
If you like your blues to simmer rather than shake check out the slow-burn title track which boasts a dark atmosphere and a compelling rhythmic force.
Devil Don’t Believe is the type of album that should be played loudly at parties as it absolutely bursts with energy, sizzles with a wicked sense of fun and deftly communicates the band’s commitment to living life to the full.
Review by Kerry Sattle
This CD is a collection of 14 songs – 11 original songs and 3 tastefully chosen songs, penned by Randy Newman, Mississippi John Hurt and John Lee Hooker.
The music is mainly Hill Country Blues style, using a variety of instruments including Banjo, Mandolin, Washboard, Banjomandolin, Kazoo & Harmonica.
The instrument variety allows the music to have crossover feels to the sound inspired by Hillbilly, Appalachian Blues, Folk, Gospel, Roots and Piedmont Blues.
The original songs are penned mainly by Tom Flood and some co-writers. From the CD cover blurb he seems to have family connections to the literary world, and as a result the songs are lyrically beautiful and artfully crafted.
This CD has an old country blues feel; raw and organic with a warmth of familiarity about it.
I really enjoyed every moment of this CD and would highly recommend it to anybody to add to their collection.
Tom Flood – vocals, banjo, harmonicas, guitar, washboard
Cec Bucello – vocals, mandolin, kazoo, keys, stomp box, banjomandolin
Frank Russell – vocals, double bass
At the heart of Bluesangels is Tom Flood – singer, poet, and multiinstrumentalist who brings an extraordinary charisma to the blues and gospelinspired down-on-yourluck music that the Blues Angels do so well.
“I wanted to write songs in as many different blues forms as we could offer” – Tom Flood.
