Howling Diablos have apparently been house band  legendary Detroit dive Sully's, backing up various blues names (Albert Collins etc) and touring with Funkadelic and Hank Williams Jr amongst others and lay out tough cuts of hardfunkbopblues with a bit of country garnish. Totally drained of all fat and extraneous shite it's as refreshing as a nice cold Guinness on a, well, any day, to hear something so resiliently blues in this day and age (how old am I?) without it being horrendous teeth grinding AOR/MOR Clapton/Cray safe as houses businessman blues. Their simple trick is playing us some songs, not using them as foundations to spray fountains of noodling guitar squawl at us. In this they come on a lot more like Lynyrd Skynyrd's insatiable Southern street party, tho a Detroit one, where they stand around burning oil cans, drinking rotgot whiskey to keep warm. This is
reflected musically, a sound as hard, dry and lean as a dried up riverbed, echoing the tough, cold urban blues climate. Skynyrd shines thru' on 'Prison Train', which sees the chirpy little riff almost crashland into the tune from 'Sesame Street' (!), and the equally Stonesy and possibly Little Feat too,
country-honkin' 'Mean Old Town', like a glint of sunshine through the trees on a winters day. The rhythms are pretty damn tough, possibly from their years as house band, playing night after night over people arguing, fighting and generally not listening. Guaranteed to put the shake in George Clinton's
funkadelic ass. Mike Smith's guitar playing is understated yet perfectly weighted, mirroring the melody line a la 'Voodoo Chile' on the opening title track, Stevie Ray slinky Albert Collins simmering on 'Gone So Long', and some sledgehammer slidework on 'Stop Runnin' Your Mouth', 'Dope Man' and 'Broke Down'. Vocalist Tino Gross has a superb blues voice,
reminiscent of even Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters at times and all stirred in to their street punk suss and wagger attitude it kinda makes me think of The Gories grandparents. Fantastic roadhouse shaboogie blues.
7/7.
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-Stu Gibson