Search - Smokin' Joe Kubek, Bnois King :: Have Blues Will Travel

Their best album yet!

Denis | NJ, USA | 06/06/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King really hit home with this brand new album, and they manage to do it in the manner that stands apart from their previous efforts. Blood Brothers, their preceding album, was excellent in its own right, but it stuck close to their honed formula of Texas bar blues. On this CD, they took it up a notch. Or two.



Joe and Bnois came up with some nice new grooves, which are catchy and fun, and all the songs feature extremely solid rhythm section that lets the guys break loose and do their thing. Compositionally, there is definitely less chord recycling than I've heard on their other albums, and while few do it better than Smokin' Joe, it's still good for them to chart a new path, get some new flavor flowing - and they do it here.



Joe himself told me that they way it worked was they sat down in his living room with Bnois and just kept working on these together until they liked what they got, and it took them about a year to put the album together. Listening to this CD, it definitely shows that they took their time to get things right, not cut any corners. You have to pay close attention to the lyrics because they did an outstanding job, and every song tells its own story in a unique and clever way. Song themes are thoroughly modern, from love over cyberspace to love affairs gone one-sided to unanswered love to blowing your payday money on yourself to domestic vendetta to fake women.



This time around, Joe and Bnois also focused more on emotionally charged songs, and they deliver them in a way that will tug on your heartstrings and make you feel the hair on your head stand up. Remarkably, those same songs are also VERY catchy, and hopefully will make it to the radio!



I also feel that Joe and Bnois are sort of going back to their roots with this CD, as their playing feels refreshed and more inspired. "R U 4 Real?" is a slow blues scorcher, where Bnois sings funny lyrics and Joe cooks up scorching solos. I was lucky to see them play this song live... After the intro, Joe shouted "play it loud!", and they smoked it, brought the house down, had everybody screaming "play the blues!!!"



Smokin' Joe is one of the few remarkable rock/blues guitarists in the world, and it is sure to satisfy the craving for electric guitar solos in spades. And of course all this wouldn't be what it is without Bnois King, who brings his silky yet rich singing voice that can both make you laugh and make you feel the pain. He is an excellent guitarist himself, who is COMPLETELY different from Joe in sound, style, and chords. Their chemistry is only getting better and better, it seems!



If you like blues-rock or rock, you owe it to yourself to buy this CD. This is not blues for purists, but people who are into modern blues and Texas bar blues I think will love it."