Ghalia & Mama's Boys - Let The Demons Out (2017) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96kHz]

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Ghalia & Mama's Boys - Let The Demons Out (2017) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96kHz]

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Ghalia & Mama's Boys - Let The Demons Out (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time - 47:40 minutes | 1,03 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

In an era of manufactured music, Let The Demons Out is as real as it gets. Mama’s Boys provide the engine-room on these twelve tracks, with sparks flying between Mastro’s gale-force harp, Smokehouse Brown’s stinger guitars, the grooving bass of Dean Zucchero and the visceral beats of Rob Lee. Leading the line, meanwhile, is Ghalia’s astonishing vocal, which somersaults from a honeyed purr to a hollered battlecry. “My lyrics come from stories I’ve experienced and the emotional reactions to them,” she says. “In the old days, they said blues is not only about lamentation but encouragement. That’s the way I see it, too. Another subject I find myself writing about is freedom – mine, yours, ours. Of course, there’s the subject of men. Can be about love, can be about sex, can be none of the above.”

These are songs that mark Ghalia out as a writer of dizzying potential. There’s the gunshot opener 4am Fried Chicken and the bone-shaking All The Good Things, with its fat beat and hedonist vocal (“All the good things, babe, they’re bad for you”). There’s the fuzz-faced swagger of Have You Seen My Woman and the unstoppable momentum of Hoodoo Evil Man. Press That Trigger fizzes with a frantic guitar solo, while the hoarse mouth-harp and thunderous beat of the title track recalls the Stones in their dazzling prime.

This multi-faceted band can also shift gears, as evidenced by the snake-charmer slow-burn of Addiction, or Hey Little Baby, which takes its sweet time, as Ghalia breathes a hypnotic vocal melody in your ear. Yet this party goes out with a bang on the closing Hiccup Boogie, with its shades of Canned Heat and a travelogue vocal that holds the listener rapt.

Look elsewhere for your background music. Let The Demons Out is an album that demands your undivided attention, and drags the blues genre into fresh relevance. “We’re not aiming to replicate traditional blues,” says Ghalia, “but rather to push the songwriting and playing to a point at which we discover something new and hopefully fresh, while still maintaining a blues vibe. Basically, we hope to strike a balance between the traditional and progressive. That’s what good art is about anyway…”