At its core, the blues is weird, spooky and played by haunted people. It’s not a sound so much as a place where those who serve the blues have no other choice, no way to escape, and nothing lined up for themselves for the rest of eternity. It’s a place where devilish deals are carried out at the crossroads, where poisoned whiskey is served at the tavern, and where hellhounds track you down whenever you try to run away.
The blues are enough to make black metal kids and lifelong gothic-rock fans want to cower away in fear. Then why is it that the only time you encounter the blues in modern media, it includes someone grinning while they’re playing guitar solos, or a nicely-dressed, cheerful singer making this music sound like a cartoonish show tune?
Rosetta West have long been on a mission – to return the blues to its bad-tempered, evil roots. “God of the Dead” is the newest instalment in the swampy, ghoulish, “ZZ Top playing the hits in Las Vegas-on-Styx” routine.
And while this is an independent, underground routine, don’t think that these are simply jams hastily thrown together on a record. “God of the Dead” is an affair that requires a good deal of focus from both the artists and their audience.
This sprawling, 15-song collection begins with “Boneyard Blues,” a well-produced slide-guitar boogie. The tracks, like many in the collection, strike the right balance between eccentricity and agreeableness. It’s a song about poor boys losing their way, but it all sounds like a party worth attending.
There’s more talk of haunted grounds and more “Tres Hombres” era, Southern-rock on the likes of “Underground” or “My Life,” where singer and head honcho of the band, Joseph Demagore, cries out and winks to the crowd just as the flames grow higher.
This is what the band does best! Sure, the slide guitar playing and the grooves are mighty fine work. But Rosetta West avoids needing to be lumped in with all the hacks playing “Got My Mojo Working” in some local bar by willing themselves to be weird and a little unfriendly-sounding.
This is music that, thankfully, has more in common with Captain Beefheart than with John Mayer. The wah-wah tones of “Tao Teh King” lead us into psychedelic adventures through exotic lands. Ghostly voices moan over the twinkling piano of “Dead of the Night.” And that old six-string is used to pick up the nighttime news bulletin in a land of fire and pain on “Inferno.”
Where does this leave us? Out into the waters and far, far away from the cliches of modern blues guitar pickers. The album’s closer, “Midnight,” pulls all the stops in a bid to remind us of the ancestral past of the blues. This is music meant to haunt both your dreams and your waking hours and Rosetta West understand this very well.
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