Blind Otis And The Lost Highway are a group which I find hard to
\ncategorize. Sounding like a cross between Lee Michaels, John
\nMellencamp and Bob Seger, their style of music is a mixture of
\nroots rock, moody pop and a touch of the blues.<\/p>\n
Sound like an interesting combination? Their second album,
\nFools Parade<\/i>, shows that this type of a mixture can indeed
\nwork – but it is a bit spotty.<\/p>\n
Otis is a passable singer and guitarist, though he seems more
\ncomfortable playing rhythm guitar or providing rhythm leads than
\nwhipping out a real solo. His hoarse vocal style fits many of the
\nnumbers well, but when the mood calls for him to do some crooning,
\nhe does this well.<\/p>\n
The radio-friendly track on this one, “Dirt,” is the one where
\nparallels between such artists like Mellencamp and even the Rolling
\nStones can be drawn; their influences on the music are clearly
\nheard. Bassist Jeff Downey provides a subtle but solid backbone to
\nthe music, while keyboardist Nick Jones and drummer Dave Hooper add
\na little more texture to the mix. (I do wish that Hooper had been
\nbrought forward a litle more in the final mix.)<\/p>\n
The band shows they are comfortable moving between solid rockers
\n(“Tomato Boogie”) and all-out ballads (“My Sweet Anodyne”), and
\nquite often the transition is smooth – but this is when the
\nmaterial is strong enough to withstand the switch. On a few
\noccasions, like “Synesthesia\/28 Candles” coming out of “Dirt,” the
\nfollowing song is weaker, and the change is quite noticeable.<\/p>\n
And there are a few occasions where I wish the songs had been a
\nlittle shorter – they would have been just as effective. The duo of
\n“Lady Strange” and “Dark Eyes” is a prime example – though in the
\nband’s defense, “Dark Eyes” does move more quickly than the
\nother.<\/p>\n
Still, there is a lot of strong material on
\nFools Parade<\/i> that makes it a very worthwhile listen.
\n“Guitars And Cadillacs” gives a slight tip of the hat to Dwight
\nYoakam, while “Fools Lament” and “Ode To Brisco” are very enjoyable
\nnumbers, the latter saluting those who make the music and labor
\naway in relative anonymity.<\/p>\n
Being on such a small label, there’s a good chance that if
\nyou’re located more than a couple stones’ throws from Indianapolis
\n(where Surf Records is headquartered), you’ve probably never heard
\nof this group. While
\nFools Parade<\/i> shows there are still some rough edges that
\nneed to be sanded down in their music, it’s worth taking the 65
\nminutes this disc runs and getting to know them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7248],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38664","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-blind-otis-and-the-lost-highway","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38664"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}