An artful and psychedelic experience, The Dead Blues Club’s ‘Vol. 1’ is a remarkable smorgasbord of modern and historic rock sounds into a sumptuously smooth blues inspired alternative rock marathon of a record. The Dead Blues Club is a solo project from Devious Dogs’ guitarist, singer/frontman and songwriter Richard Gray. The multi-instrumentalist and singer takes a commanding role on this album, playing and performing the drums, percussion, bass guitar, electric organ, keyboards, synthesisers, guitars and vocals. While two of his previous band’s members, Sam Bollands and Kenny Thompson, join in as accompanying acts on the album, it’s a vision that’s primarily driven and brought to life by Richard Gray.
There’s an existential dread, a certain ominous veneer that drapes all across Vol. 1. Opening the record with Bloody Ada, you’re hurled into a rather dark and dreary performance that manages to find a certain lusciousness in the shimmering production. On ‘Submarines’, The Dead Blues Club gets a lot more raucous and harder. Here, a clearer hard rock inspired riff and vocal performance steers the shorter track into being a punchy and powerful bop. But it’s perhaps on tracks like FIRE that The Dead Blues Club sees itself in its finest brilliance. The rather unique melodic approach that’s cheery and has a bit of classical influence in the arrangement while being driven by an aggressive almost rap-rock vocal performance is thoroughly endemic to The Dead Blues Club.
Effortlessly experimental and marvellously meticulous, it’s a sensational piece of modern art rock.