Lynn Drury – High Tide (2024)    

Review:
Lynn Drury is a rodeo rider turned blues woman from New Orleans possessed of a sturdy belt, a crack band and a sophisticated turn of phrase. High Tide, her 10th full length, kicks up a rowdy ruckus with a lot of heart, but never really breaks out of the mold. Drury is brash and confident in the roadhouse piano banger “Great Divide.” Against a backdrop of shuddering bent notes and rampaging twang, she plants herself firmly at the foreground of the sonic mix. “I’m just trying to stay centered in the great divide,” she wails, cracking wise about polarization. The sound is classic country rock; the lyrics are a little more evolved. You don’t last long as a bad musician in New Orleans, so it’s no surprise that Drury’s supporting cast is uniformly excellent.  Doug Belote, who has played with Eric Clapton and Dr. John, holds down the rhythm section, alongside Rene Coman of the Iguanas.  Papa Mali, a New Orleans mainstay and Ruthie Foster producer, plays smart, unshowy blues guitar.  Amid all this proficiency, Drury does just fine, with a convincing growl, a huge belt and an emotionally charged mid-range. And yet, despite the demonstrable ability of everyone involved, the songs seem a little generic.  “Blue” with its slow-handed guitar riff, its ruminative pace, its long thoughtful arcs of slide is all pretty enough, a lament about a man who isn’t around as much as everyone would like.  There’s a nice curve up to the chorus, a subtle shift in momentum, but the song ultimately never takes off.  Or take the vamping “Fade,” with its shape shifting rock guitar flares and Drury’s world weary delivery.  It’s the kind of song that Lucinda Williams would light a fire under; here it only smolders a little. The material gets slower and dreamier as the album goes on, with some of the strongest songs near the end.  “Here Comes the Waiting” slouches gracefully through the embers of a botched romance (“Now you’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good friendship.”), stares into space disconsolately, then picks up again in a un deux trois count that almost audibly shakes it off.  “When It All Comes Down” is even better, with its surfy low notes and shuffling, skittering Latin rhythm.  It’s sleek and fluid and embellished with soft backing vocals, but also unflinching.  It’s like looking hard into the mirror at three in the morning and refusing to back down.  More of this, less of the faux hearty country rock, and we’ve got something. — dusted



Track List:
01 - Blue
02 - Fade
03 - High Tide
04 - Don't Wait
05 - I Waited Too Long
06 - Love Bomb
07 - Lay Down My Weapons
08 - Great Divide
09 - Live My Life
10 - Waiting Game
11 - When It All Comes Down


Media Report:
Genre: americana
Origin: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA  
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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