Following on from September’s EP of covers Glaswegian National Steel blues rocker Arcari’s latest 5-track shin-kicking damnation dram is a taster for a full album early next year. With a voice unfeasibly like that of a chap who’s larynx has had a vicious fight with the paddle end of a Mississippi steamer, come out trumps and still called out for another hand to be laid out at the gaming table Arcari has the high ace that his own compositions here fit with old arid earth blues as close as a whole acre of plants in a cotton field that proved so fertile for the blues, yet still retain enough urban grime n’ grit of modernity to actually far outstrip the recent covers set. And, yes, folks, we’re talking proper low-down blues here, not geography teacher trite finger-picking fluppery for accountants and statisticians. Essentially this is mired in pre-R’n’R country blues but the jagged switchblade serrations of the slide on the resonator guitar give it an industrialised clank and unique character that shouldn’t be kept barrelled for too long. The ragtime boogie and Blind Boy Fuller bellow that heralds the start of a bender of ‘Texicalli Waltz’ and ‘Red Letter Blues’ might be the pick of this crop, but they all use a chequered flag past and present as a beer-mat from the Charley Patton prison yard-pounder ‘Come With Me’ to the Leadbelly howling at midnight with Blind Lemon Jefferson on ‘One Side Blind’. With closer ‘Bound To Ride’ this should be a must have from blues purists to spurious Jack White jivers.  __________________________________________________

- Stu Gibson