After four previous albums, you’d think that I would have
\ndiscovered Dave Hole by now.<\/p>\n
The Australian slide guitarist has made quite a name for himself
\nalong the blues circuit for his style and for his performances
\n(including his unorthodox over-the-neck attack of his slide
\nplaying). But for some reason, I just didn’t find myself getting
\nall that worked up about Hole.<\/p>\n
Now that I’ve heard his fifth and latest album
\nUnder The Spell<\/i>, I’m convinced that Hole is an underrated
\ntalent in the blues world with vocals similar to those of John
\nMayall. But I’m also resolved in my belief that you can only listen
\nto so much slide guitar in one sitting.<\/p>\n
With a solid backing band – keyboardist Bob Patient, rhythm
\nguitarist Michael Vdelli, bassist Roy Daniel and drummer Ric
\nWhittle – Hole could easily pass for one of the products of the
\nChicago blues scene. If there is even a trace of his Australian
\naccent in his singing, I have yet to hear it come to the forefront.
\nAs both a vocalist and slide guitarist, Hole is more than adequate
\nin both categories.<\/p>\n
Aw, who am I kidding? On tracks like “Run With Me,” “Blues Is
\nThe Truth” and “More Love, Less Attitude,” Hole shines like a
\ndiamond in the rough, his smooth vocals easily merging with his
\nbottleneck slide action. His leads are incredibly clean, something
\nI still am not used to with slide guitar.<\/p>\n
But Hole does show that one can have too much of a good thing,
\nas he drags “Bird’s Eye Blues” out to the point of being painful.
\nThe song itself has a plodding beat that was a mistake from the
\nget-go. Fortunately, this is the only bad track on
\nUnder The Spell<\/i>; the rest of the disc ranges from pleasantly
\nlistenable to dance inspiring.<\/p>\n
What is toughest about
\nUnder The Spell<\/i> is that hearing nothing but slide guitar
\nleads gets to be a bit tiring to my ears, and my breaking point
\ncame around the track “Lost At Sea” (which was an excellent track
\notherwise). Most slide players I’ve heard seem to know when it’s
\ntime to mix regular lead work in place of pure slide action. Maybe
\nif Hole had provided a little more variety of this sort, the disc
\nwould have been a little easier to get through.<\/p>\n
Still,
\nUnder The Spell<\/i> is a very pleasant disc that is sure to
\nserve as a wake-up call to people like yours truly that the blues
\ndoesn’t just live in Chicago or the Mississippi Delta. Hole shows
\nhow talented of a musician he is, and could well be one of the most
\nunheralded guitarists of his time. But the old saying does ring
\ntrue: variety is the spice of life. Here’s hoping Hole can throw in
\neven just a pinch of that spice the next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7440],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39076","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dave-hole","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39076","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=39076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39076"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39076"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}