CHRIS C: It's sad when potential we see goes unfulfilled. When I first heard Blues Pills' debut album, I saw a world of potential for them. That record is an amazing piece of vintage style rock, perhaps second to Graveyard's holy trinity, and Elin Larsson needed only a few songs to make clear she is one of the best young singers in the game. I loved that record, and I still do. It was a band on the cusp of something amazing, a stepping stone that could reach as high as they wanted to.... and then the second album shifted directions, and I couldn't follow where they were going. The last few years have been a cycle wondering if they were going to right the ship, or continue sailing away from me. Now we find out.
As the exclamation mark in the title might suggest, the band has decided to get back to rocking. This album leaves behind most of the soul influences that kept me from enjoying "Lady In Gold", and gets back to the same spirit as the debut. It's not the same record, though, as both the music and mix are a bit busier and more unrelenting. The band is rocking, but they aren't playing with dynamics and the blues as much as they originally did, and that has a real impact on how the music comes across.
For one thing, the band playing with more aggression gives Elin less room for her voice to sit in the mix. She is still fantastic, but there are fewer moments where her voice stands out and we can hear every nuance of her performance. I miss that element to the songs. For another thing, playing aggressively with such a fuzzy guitar tone gives the opposite result of the intention. When hit hard, fuzz doesn't sound heavy, because it obscures the notes and covers the musicality of the songs with a wash of noise. "Dreaming My Life Away" is trying to rock hard, but it doesn't sound as heavy as "Astralplane" did, despite the added distortion on the guitars.
They find the perfect balance of their previous albums on "California", where Elin belts out notes like Aretha Franklin over chords and pianos, which then builds into a fuzzy solo that serves as a proper crescendo. Right there, I can hear them putting the pieces together and figuring out how to synthesize their various influences into a more cohesive Blues Pills sound. That song shows they can be everything they want to be at the same time, on the same record.
That's how the up-tempo rockers like "Kiss My Past Goodbye" can sit side-by-side with the sinister blues of "Dust" and not sound out of place. Blues Pills are able to sound natural, and that goes a long way. They aren't trying to sound current, or cool, nor are they trying to play for the mainstream. This record sounds authentic, and you can't often fake that.
Other than wishing the production was a little cleaner all around, Blues Pills have returned to form, and delivered a record that sets them up for the future. Here, they have taken the two very different chapters of their story, and written a new narrative to tie them together. Some of us will still prefer the first album, some of us the second, but we should all find something in "Holy Moly!" to enjoy. Blues Pills has managed the difficult task of growing while retaining their identity, and the result is an album that should please plenty of us who enjoy organic, authentic rock and roll.
****
D.M: The most important mark in the overall analysis of a band’s career is whether or not they improve from album to album. This is particularly important in the first arc of a band’s catalogue, and especially critical within the first three albums.
Blues Pills, the retro rock act from Sweden, has proven their ability to see new pathways and correlate the maturity of their sound into a tangible path of improvement. Their eponymous debut album in 2014 was a start, and then 2016’s “Lady in Gold” showed great promise, but couldn’t sustain it for the duration. Now, in 2020, following multiple pandemic-related delays, we come to “Holy Moly!” and the glimmers of greatness that colored “Lady in Gold” (particularly the single of the same name,) are realized in full splendor.
The functional change here is that a great deal of largesse has been cut out. Gone are the winding wanderings of psychedelia which made the previous album airy and borderline passive to listen to. Instead, we hear that replaced with a resolute, ardent soulfulness that gives the music of Blues Pills a snap it hasn’t possessed to date.
The slight shift in musical idiom comes amidst a lineup change for the band. Bassist Zack Anderson made the move to guitar and a new bass player, Kristoffer Schander, was brought in. We’ve seen this move before in music, occasionally with disastrous results (just ask Fear Factory,) but Blues Pills makes a seamless transition.
Of course, part of the success is that neither Anderson or Schander are asked to go beyond the boundaries of their role for “Holy Moly!” They are demonstrably capable in this style of music, but the lion’s share of the burden is left to vocalist Elin Larrson, and she carries that load with her best performance to date. Her singing is melodious but blessed with just the right touch of earthiness, which means that when she’s slinging righteous vitriol in the album’s opener “Proud Woman,” her voice strikes the difficult balance between being easy to listen to and also backed by conviction.
This dovetails nicely into “Low Road,” which is endemic of the urgency which permeates the entire proceeding. That’s key: more than just the absence of previously employed musical whimsy, “Holy Moly!” benefits from an infusion of energy into the album which pushes and prods and marks a brisk pace from beginning to end. The drums of André Kvarnström are most impactful when pushing the tempo, as he does so capably in “Low Road” and impactfully for “Rhythm in the Blood.” These are kinetic pieces that give Blues Pills the oomph they’ve never had before.
Of course, “Holy Moly!” is not a one-size-fits-all affair, either. The band’s ability to pick their spots means they can drop the instant classic “Dust” right in the middle of the chaos and have it move the listener with an unexpected emotional push. “Dust” is a bombshell. As soon as the album makes you accustomed to the new feel of the proceedings, here comes a blues-rich power rock song that causes closed eyes, slow head nodding and a liquidity of muscle movements in heretofore unexperienced ways.
Lest we get lost in praise, there are a small handful of drawbacks. First and quickest to deal with, the song “California” falls flat. Not that every song on this album need be perfect, but this is worth mentioning because it points to a larger trend – when bands write songs about places, and locations involving the west coast and/or beaches are perhaps the most common among those, the artist tends to try and adapt their sound to what they think that place should sound like. In doing so, they get away from what got them here in the first place, and the result is a dead spot on the album. This is not isolated to Blues Pills by any stretch. The same thing happened earlier this year with The Heavy Eyes “Love Like Machines,” when they wrote a lifeless tune about Vera Cruz.
For one, “Holy Moly!” is one song too long. Or at least, it should be re-ordered. The culmination and subsequent release at the end of “Song From a Mourning Dove” should end the album. But it doesn’t. Following that cathartic statement is “Longest Lasting Friend,” which feels tacked on and fails to rise to the occasion of the events preceding. Blues Pills was clearly going for the same effect as when Graveyard ended “Innocence & Decadence” with the amazing “Stay for a Song,” (bonus tracks notwithstanding,) but “Longest Lasting Friend” lacks the instant magnetism of Graveyard’s heartfelt closing soliloquy. Which brings us to the next point…
…and this is less a criticism than a note. “Holy Moly!” sounds, in many ways, like a Graveyard album, but with Elin Larsson singing. That’s hardly an insult – Blues Pills and Graveyard are countrymen after all, and the latter is one of the ten best bands working today. All that means is that while “Holy Moly!” is a new and unique sound for Blues Pills (and an excellent one at that,) it does not necessarily present the listener with something they haven’t heard before, or even something they haven’t heard somewhat recently.
Be that as it may, there is no earthly reason to miss out on “Holy Moly!” Blues Pills has marched further down the path of musical discovery and released their first true statement album. “Holy Moly!” will be a recurring staple in the playlists of any fan of rock, blues, soul, or hell, just plain good music.
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