Jay Gordon: Blues Venom – No Cure Review
With Blues Venom – No Cure, Jay Gordon displays his own blend of redneck rock and blues. The album is musically solid and consists mostly of standard twelve bar blues songs. There are likable elements such as Jay Gordon’s southern drawl that make for an interesting listen vocally and likable bluesy harmonica and organ solos. But there are two main problems with the album; firstly Gordon’s constant wailing solos that become long, self-indulgent and some of the most uneconomical guitar playing around and some poor lyrics that lack a sense of the blues.
“Dockery’s Plantation” opens up quite enjoyably to a catchy, distorted hook riff from Gordon; The song is a mid-tempo blues ballad to the life and impact of Robert Johnson that unfortunately becomes painfully dull because it’s so simplistic lyrically. From there on you pretty much get a set formula for the album; “World Blues,” “Blues Venom.” “Red Hot Tempered Woman,” “Kickin’ Blues Ass,” “Mr Max” are all upbeat, 12 bar rock beats that are musically consistent but the lyrics are almost none existent besides from just repeating the title of the track over and over with each song rapidly becoming a prolonged guitar solo from Gordon. To give you an idea at just how long each song (or Gordon solo) is the first five songs combined run at over thirty minutes. And by the time you get to the song “Rock Me” (in which Gordon’s guitar literally doesn’t stop soloing in one of the most uneconomical blues songs ever) you’ve already heard nearly an hour of the guy soloing at that point. Now, I’m not against long songs, but they should try to build to something in a tone, lyrical, or tempo sense, or just be catchy enough to run for that long. Gordon’s songs attempt none of these and certainly aren’t catchy enough.
The two best songs on the album are when Gordon’s playing is toned down. “Winds Of Thor” and “That Was Yesterday” are musically the best song on the album. “Winds Of Thor” is a slowed down tempo song with a dulcet, melodic building tone, especially with the organ solo which is an awesome set up to the song. The introduction of a second voice is also much welcomed. “That Was Yesterday” also has a slowed down tempo, while Sharon Butcher (the bassist) sings with her southern drawl working effectively to the rich melancholic tone of the song provided mostly by Gordon’s melody and the singers vocals. The verses and chorus are great, but every bridge with Gordon’s over done soloing ruins the mood of the track. “Whiskey, Women and Fast Cars” finishes the album and it’s an enjoyable, jaunty blues number.
I really didn’t like this album too much (and you might disagree with this opinion) with the biggest problem being Jay Gordon. Lyrically there’s nothing new here and it’s severely lacking in substance in many instances and the man solos himself into redundancy. With the exception of two or three songs that save the album overall it’s mediocre at best.
The Review: 6.5/10
Can’t Miss Tracks
– Winds Of Thor
– That Was Yesterday
The Big Hit
– Whiskey, Women And Fast Cars
Review by Josh May
