Album Review: "Chief" by Talmud Beach

Chief

Recently I had a lovely time with a friend of mine and his wife. He'd invited my wife and I over for dinner and an evening of conversation, laughter, beers, and records.

Jokingly...He was asked if I should bring my Carcass records? Well, my buddy's not really metal at all and his wife is certainly less so.

After we discussed it, Kaki King, The Hiders, and Labors were all under my arm when we arrived. My six pack of Michelob Golden Light Draft was in my other hand.

Many folks have this impression of me that all of my music is hail Satan this and Rock'n'Roll All Nite that. In all honesty, that's very untrue. Perhaps you've noticed the new header photo I recently posted on all of my social media pages and this very blog. There's nearly no metal in that slab of vinyl.

With that in mind, let's check out something from the Heartland.

Talmud Beach

The heartland of Finland that is.

Talmud Beach is a roots blues trio from Finland.

The Blues is kind of like Metal. There are so many similar, yet distinctly different kind of it.

On first listen, Talmud Beach is greatly inspired by Cream and The Yardbirds.

The guitar tones, which are godly, have only a touch of the fuzzed out warbles of Buddy Guy or John Lee Hooker.

Then as the record played, there were specks of Canned Heat's Boogie Blues, borrowed from John Lee Hooker. There was never really a decision made on what kind of Blues they were going to play. It was always changing.

Even the language of the vocals changed. We had some English and some Finnish!

The best way they can be described is that Talmud Beach is a Finnish take on English Blues which was an English take on Boogie Blues which was a white American take on Chicago Blues which was an electric take on Delta Blues which was made famous because of Robert Johnson.

This album is about as meta as it gets.

Release: 3/18/16
Genre: Blues
Label: Svart Records
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