Blindstone – Scars to Remember
Release Date: 11th August 2023
Label: Mighty Music
Bandcamp
Genre: Blues, Blues Rock.
FFO: Walter Trout, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Danish-based blues power trio Blindstone have apparently been one of the best kept secrets in the “closed” blues scene for two decades. With the release of this, their tenth album, they are hoping to finally get the recognition they deserve.
First thing to say, they are all exceptional musicians. They hit that late 60s/early 70s blues rock groove spot on. So much so that in 2020 they were hired as the backing band for the legendary Walter Trout when he toured Denmark. It was this experience that inspired them to try a new stylistic approach.
However, for those not fully ensconced in that “closed” blues scene, Scars To Remember doesn’t feel like a band flinging back the door of the enclosure and marching defiantly into the light. It feels more like them peeking cautiously round the edge of the door frame and maybe taking a tentative step out, whilst keeping one foot safely inside their comfort zone.
The ten tracks that make up the album are all highly polished examples of blues heavy rock, with all the boxes ticked. Drums of War (as the title suggests) is the heavy one, whilst Drifting Away (again as the title suggests) is the more laid back one. The production then adds a vacuum-packed sheen over the top, sealing the tracks away like action figures that are kept pristine in their boxes on a high shelf, rather than the ones that are played with every day in muddy back garden recreations of fantasy landscapes.
Despite the band having collaborated with a lyricist on this album, it’s obvious that Martin Jesper Andersen’s guitar work is the main focal point in Blindstone. Which means that there is a definite undercurrent of impatience during the vocal sections, and ultimately results in the purely instrumental The Fields Of Bethal releasing all that pent-up fretboard frustration.
Whilst on the subject of lyrics, the press release states that the ‘..band’s lyrical universe has reached new levels of seriousness and depth’ . Truth be told, they can come across a little clichéd in places, for example, Down For The Count offers the refrain “Well I was down for the count, but don’t you ever count me out”. Also, if it is your first attempt at writing ‘serious’ lyrics, addressing the war in Ukraine (the aforementioned Drums Of War) might be a minefield you want to avoid (no pun intended).
In conclusion, Scars To Remember is an immaculacy played and produced collection of 60/70s blues rock that will do no harm to the band’s reputation as the ‘best kept secret’ in blues rock, but, might not be intriguing enough for the rest of us to want to get in on it.
(3 / 5)
