Following up the amazing Ballad Of John Henry <\/i>is no small feat, but Joe Bonamassa tried the very next year with Black Rock, <\/i>which reverts to the formula of five originals and eight covers. But sandwiched between John Henry <\/i>and 2011\u2019s Dust Bowl<\/i>, this one feels like a stopgap that misses the mark, albeit in stylish, satisfying fashion.<\/p>\n
Four studio albums in four years, plus a studio collaboration with Beth Hart that pushes the mark to five, is quite an intense workload in the CD era, so Bonamassa is to be commended for that. However, one wonders what would have happened if the best of this disc and the best of Dust Bowl <\/i>had been combined; it would have been killer, and the covers could have been saved for a stopgap release down the road. But no matter; Black Rock <\/i>is what we\u2019ve been given.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t care for Bonamassa, this won\u2019t change your mind; if you\u2019re a fan, as most people who hear him become, you\u2019ll enjoy this but to a lesser degree than other albums because it\u2019s just more of the same. The album really comes to life when Bonamassa continues to write original songs and expand his horizons, as he did with \u201cThe Ballad Of John Henry\u201d one year prior, as he does here with the intense acoustic folk\/flute blues \u201cQuarryman\u2019s Lament\u201d (and its cousin, \u201cAthens To Athens\u201d) and the hypnotic psych-blues-rock \u201cBlue And Evil,\u201d far and away the best song here. <\/p>\n
But there are only five of these moments, with the other songs coming in the form of covers, including a faithful (read: mundane) acoustic reading of Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cBird On A Wire,\u201d a perfunctory take on Jeff Beck\u2019s \u201cSpanish Boots,\u201d and John Hiatt\u2019s \u201cI Know A Place,\u201d which doesn\u2019t stick in the memory for too long on here. Bonamassa shows stylistic range with his choices, to be fair, and his two-minute take on Otis Redding\u2019s \u201cThree Times A Fool\u201d is a surging blast of heat, as is the B.B. King duet \u201cNight Life\u201d (a Willie Nelson song). King has long been a mentor and influence on Bonamassa, so hearing the two guitarists together with horn blasts all around is great fun for everyone, which is evident in the singing as well as the many solos.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, \u201cWandering Earth,\u201d \u201cLook Over Yonders Wall,\u201d the old-timey shufflin\u2019-n\u2019-grinnin\u2019 \u201cBaby You Gotta Change Your Mind,\u201d and \u201cWhen The Fire Hits The Sea\u201d are just more of the same, sounding fine, expertly played by a guy who knows his stuff and reveres the masters, but not up to par with the rest. Coupled with the aforementioned dutiful covers, more than half the album rarely rises to must-listen status, and Bonamassa\u2019s best work demands that. Ultimately, Black Rock <\/i>ends up being a step sideways for most of its run time, which may please fans and those who dig modern blues-rock in general, but relegates it to the second tier of Joe Bonamassa albums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":33041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7758],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-44825","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joe-bonamassa","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44825","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44825"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44825"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}