Artist: Jason Elmore & Hoodoo Witch
Album: Champagne Velvet
Label: Underworld Records
Release Date: 09/16/2016
Champagne Velvet is one of those albums that slowly slips under your skin, steadily rolling along with cool chops and vocals that have echoes of Down South southern comfort, passionate soul and R&B bluesy hits that highlight experience and maturity.
From Texas, the band is a power-trio with a reputation for hard-rocking, and this release does have elements of rock in the mix, but also succeeds in subtlety and soulful solidity that is seldom heard with the power-trio format. There’s much more to the normal outpouring of loud, guitar-driven noise with this fourteen track offering. Instead there’s a deeper sensitivity with an ability to take it down deep, ease back on the gas when needed and switch to acoustic at times. Two tracks, in particular, illustrate the strength here: “Midnight In Memphis” has a genuinely light rocking, shuffle sound and lyrical depth that is hard to resist, while the penultimate track, “Green To Gone,” is an acoustic number with some nicely pitched slide-work underpinning the old-school style.
The album opens with a slamming, raw-edged live feel and a boogie that sets the tone for much to follow and closes with a lyrical play and a rocking-riff that again confirms that Elmore is a guy with a clear vision and purpose.
-Iain Patience
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