Greasy and gritty guitar-and-drums two-man blues
Two-man blues bands have become their own genre, blossoming from the font of the White Stripes and a dozen others. Left Lane Cruiser is a Fort Wayne, Indiana duo that offers roaring storms of electric slide playing by Freddy J IV (Fredrick Joe Evans IV) and powerful, driving drumming by Brenn Beck. Though the songs often settle into standard blues progressions, the raw, shouted vocals and in-your-face electric guitar force is quite unsettling. Beck is constantly in motion on his snare and kick drums, adding cymbal crashes for texture, while Evans alternates between greasy power chords, low-string riffs and slide licks that alchemize electricity into music. The torrent of distortion clears momentarily as the duo turns the volume down for finger-picking and washboard percussion on “Ol’ Fashioned.†But mostly the duo rages, with Evans’ growl sufficiently distorted to obscure many of his lyrics. But with titles that include “Black Lung,†“Hard Luck,†and “Broke Ass Blues,†the pain isn’t subtle. This is very much what you’d expect from a band that thanks Jim Beam and Pabst Blue Ribbon for “keeping us feelin’ good.†[©2009 hyperbolium dot com] 