Benjamin Booker is a songwriter that is not afraid to mix with genres. The usual folky songwriter vibe is brought alive with bluesy rock and dashes of punk to create an album that feels original yet (paradoxically) classic.
The album’s greatest success is it’s potential to appeal to a wide range of music fans. Not only is its fresh-but-familiar sound going to catch ears, but there is also something for everyone in terms of the listener’s needs. I’ve enjoyed listening to it through my headphones, but I can equally imagine this proving a hit on popular radio when driving with the windows down, or in a muddy field with the last of the summer light illuminating thousands of half-cut revellers.
This duality seems present throughout the album. ‘Violent Shiver’ is at the punky end of the spectrum, with Booker pushes his vocals to the edge of comprehension before the festival-friendly singalong refrain “we found a way!”; ‘Have You Seen My Son’ starts off as a galloping rock ‘n roll song, complete with evangelical growls and yelps, before morphing into a moody bluesy rock effort that will please fans of The Black Keys;
It’s clever stuff, straddling the raw intensity of something personal and the fast-paced, why-don’t-you-join-in chorus that means that Booker could well be the next rock artist to get some love from the wider world.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/156731367″]
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/143695850″]
Violent Shiver is out today in the UK (18/8) on Rough Trade, and tomorrow in the US on ATO Records. You can stream the album in full over at NPR if you need more convincing. Finally, if you’ve ever wondered what a singalong with the binmen of Paris might be like, La Blogothèque have you covered:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3lZvjs3LwY]