Dixie Fried

It was at the tail end of last year that Dixie Fried dived in and caught me completely off guard in King Tuts with a blistering live outing in support to the equally impressive Molotov Jukebox.

I had been told they were good, but the praise had seriously downplayed just how good.

With the sound of their short set ringing in my ears I swore I would have to track down their album, even if only to see if the duo could replicate the live experience in the studio.

Now that I have procured myself a copy the answer to that is a resounding hell yes they can.

In fact it's a Hell Yes with a capital H and Y.

There's something of the garage in how they're keeping their take on the blues limited to guitar and drum, something primal and hungry that's got a powerful allure to it.

The sort of sound that grabs at your gut.

At times it's akin to Led Zeppelin keeping it low key and jamming with a different vocalist.

There's that sort of strength to it.

There's a bit of seventies rock bombast there, but not enough to give it the feeling of a band who are emulating the past and have lost sight of the present.

Instead it's a nicely balanced homage to the blues from the cotton fields right up to the stadium shaking rock angle on it, but without necessarily being either one or the other.

Of course there will be those who will jump to the band being a duo of guitarist and drummer playing the blues and mistakenly clutch at a conclusion as to how they sound, but they would be wrong.

Dixie Fried are not the Jack and Meg experience.

Instead they are working on a rawer interpretation that has a timeless and evocative attraction to it.

Grabbing all the base elements of the genre and channelling them through themselves.

It's music that doesn't speak of being clean and smooth, but more of the rough edge and the reality of the blues as it is before it is dressed up with a shiny suit and sent forth to smile at the masses.

Forget all the bells and whistles.

This is a fully functioning machine that is frills free.

So ease away from the auto tuned to within an inch of its life chart fodder and sit back and crack open a beer to this and just wallow in the honesty of it.

It's damn good.

http://www.dixiefried.co.uk/