Billard Blossom seem like a pretty okay group of fellas. They have a few videos posted on YouTube that feature the band playing out or working in their rehearsal room. From the available evidence, it seems like they’d be a good time if you stopped in for a beer and they just happened to be on stage. Their self-titled debut from 2013 is easy enough to like. The songs on ‘Change Your Grip‘ are well written and capably performed.
Their catalogue ranges across a variety of styles that would all find friendly ears amongst the readers here. Their sound and style show flashes of early Stones, Flying Burrito Brothers, Drive-By Truckers, and the Replacements.
Despite the songs on ‘Change Your Grip‘ being easy enough to like, the album has a fatal flaw. The combination of overzealous ride cymbal, drum mike placement, mixing and mastering have combined to give the whole album an unintended (one hopes) wash-cycle effect. Even when you put in the effort to listen through it, the harm it does to a listener’s enjoyment of the album can’t be ignored. The lone exception out of the nine tracks on the album is ‘Saddest Song’, owing to its departure from the ride-heavy drumming of the other eight.
It’s always a bit of a bummer when you have to offer a less than enthusiastic review of an album. That bummer is only intensified when the album in question has been offered up by a group that you would like to see on the receiving end of good things.
Unfortunately, that desire can’t come before the obligation to you, dear reader. At the end of the day, it is to you that we owe our greatest allegiance.
https://soundcloud.com/davidslute/08-saddest-song
