Album Review: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Meat And Bone

The status of New York garage-blues-soul-punk trio The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has been relatively unknown of late; scant touring and no new material in eight years has had them dead in some people's minds, though Meat And Bone proves this band are very much alive.

Black Mold is a solid, if not something of an uninspiring, start before Bag Of Bones provides more of JSBX's rhythmically and melodically wild fare to pique interest; its Chicken Dog-like groove and wailing harp bringing us back to 1996's Now I Got Worry. By the time Get Your Pants Off and Ice Cream Killer appear midway through the record, it feels like the more alluring aspects of the Blues Explosion's inimitable cool are back. Spencer has never been a renowned lyricist and none of his ranting will stir you too deeply here, but he remains a vocalist who performs with absolute power. Boot Cut, Danger and Black Thoughts particularly show Spencer at his most wonderfully ostentatious.

While there's nothing surprising about these fast and furious tunes, it's the production that, once again, is a point of difference. There's a little studio trickery, but nothing even close to what we came to expect from the band on [1998's] Acme and Now I Got Worry; on those releases they were using the studio as an instrument unto itself, whereas here it just colours the basic rock band-oriented songs on offer.

It's nice to have them back, but there's no way this will be replacing any of those sensational releases that the band gave us in the late-'90s at the top of the CD pile.