Why the resurgence of interest in the blues right now? After all, it's the start of the 21st Century: we're all supposed to be zipping around Mars on our robot jetpacks, not listening to music that's barely evolved from what our grandparents might've liked if they'd been hip enough. NEW! For the latest music videos and backstage interviews, check out our brand new sister site, NME Video.
Still, for three reasonably well-balanced looking guys, the Soledad Brothers have got those University-educated white suburban indie-rock fan blues real real bad. From Toledo, just up the road from Detroit, they also have pedigree: ex-MC5 manager/rabble rouser in chief John Sinclair wrote the sleevenotes for their debut album, which was produced by Jack White and featured Meg playing pots and pans in the background.
Theirs is not just a nostalgia trip, mind: hotwiring that rattly blues template with the aid of a bit of punker energy and some lascivious Stones licks, they build on a primitive one-two one-two Bo Diddley beat, piling on rusty guitars and greasy sax into a menacing mass of eerily sepia-sounding Americana. 'This Guitar Says I'm Sorry' wobbles and keens deliriously, while 'Nation's Bell' (from new album 'Steal Your Soul And Dare Your Spirit To Move') sounds like a runaway train crashing into a graveyard.
It all ends messily, with Brother Number One - the possibly pseudonymously named Johnny Walker - humping his guitar on the grimy floor, while drummer Ben Swank kicks at his cymbals with a polished Chelsea boot.
Yesterday's music rarely felt more alive.
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