Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite - No Mercy In This Land (2018) / AvaxHome

After Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite won the Best Blues Album Grammy for 2013's wonderful Get Up!, fans knew it was only a question of time before they worked together again. In the interim, the only outing from Harper was another duo offering, the gorgeous folk-inflected Childhood Home with his mother Ellen Harper. Musselwhite, a serious road dog, issued the raw, scorching Juke Joint Chapel on Henrietta the year before and was also nominated for a Grammy. Get Up! was followed by the wild and wooly live set I Ain't Lyin' in 2015. He assembled a new band and gigged all over the world, also finding time to participate in a documentary about Clarksdale, Mississippi.

No Mercy in This Land follows on the heels of its predecessor by using mostly the same formula: Harper wrote or co-wrote the entire album and sings lead with Musselwhite lending his growling Delta-cum-Chicago harmonica in support. Opener "When I Go" commences with wordless gospel-blues moaning before the wrangling electric guitar and harp meet in the foreground. It's raw, swampy, and lonesome. Further, when Harper gets to the final line of the refrain: "….I'll take you with me when I go…." it's borderline sinister. "Bad Habit" borrows heavily from Preston Foster's "I Got My Mojo Workin' à la Muddy Waters' version (as do a lot of blues songs) with a smoking Little Walter-esque harp solo by Musselwhite. The great bluesman duets with Harper on the title track, as the guitarist plays an acoustic slide under his deep blue harmonica, with tom-tom and kick drums keeping time. Another standout is the raucous single "The Bottle Wins Again," with the lead guitar vamp and harmonica playing in unison as Harper wails the lyric. The brief, shuffling, cut-time groover "Found the One" walks the loopy line where vintage R&B and Chicago blues meet roots rock. Musselwhite's distorted solo is resonant and unruly. While "When Love Is Not Enough," with its lilting piano, upright bassline, and brushed snares under acoustic and electric guitars is a nod at Southern soul, it's mostly a vehicle for Harper's sweet, ragged singing. It's answered by the Piedmont-style acoustic blues "Trust You to Dig My Grave," with Harper on acoustic 12-string guitar. The pair push the pedal to the metal with "Movin' On," a snarling, rowdy, swaggering, barroom blues before closing with the anti-climactic, all-too-languid ballad "Nothing at All" which, frankly, feels out of place here. Musselwhite's deep blues solo is the only thing that links it to the rest of the album's contents. Ultimately, No Mercy in This Land is solid if not (quite) as strong as Get Up! That said, it is more diverse, immediate, and instinctive, making it a worthy listen, and provides further evidence that this pair should work together more often.

by Thom Jurek, allmusic

Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite - No Mercy In This Land (2018):

Tracklist:

01. When I Go
02. Bad Habits
03. Love And Trust
04. The Bottle Wins Again (Blues)
05. Found The One
06. When Love Is Not Enough
07. Trust You To Dig My Grave
08. No Mercy In This Land
09. Movin' On
10. Nothing At All

EAC Log

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 27. June 2018, 12:20

Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite / No Mercy In This Land

Used drive : TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-224DB Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\win64\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:45.00 | 0 | 16874
2 | 3:45.00 | 3:45.15 | 16875 | 33764
3 | 7:30.15 | 3:06.68 | 33765 | 47782
4 | 10:37.08 | 3:38.08 | 47783 | 64140
5 | 14:15.16 | 2:47.16 | 64141 | 76681
6 | 17:02.32 | 4:08.49 | 76682 | 95330
7 | 21:11.06 | 3:32.40 | 95331 | 111270
8 | 24:43.46 | 3:45.05 | 111271 | 128150
9 | 28:28.51 | 3:01.74 | 128151 | 141799
10 | 31:30.50 | 3:37.30 | 141800 | 158104

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename F:\Sket4er\Ben Harper And Charlie Musselwhite – No Mercy In This Land 2018\Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite - No Mercy In This Land.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Extraction speed 2.8 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 5F1D32D2
Copy CRC 5F1D32D2
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 24) [C1D624D7], AccurateRip returned [A0D6B0C8] (AR v2)
Track 2 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 24) [B775A539], AccurateRip returned [C830DF9E] (AR v2)
Track 3 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 24) [CF6EF83D], AccurateRip returned [01FBB2F2] (AR v2)
Track 4 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [59FA979B], AccurateRip returned [B955C39E] (AR v2)
Track 5 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [D715A06C], AccurateRip returned [4785CD1E] (AR v2)
Track 6 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [0D33910A], AccurateRip returned [B9857DEC] (AR v2)
Track 7 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [5E48DF55], AccurateRip returned [A8206E22] (AR v2)
Track 8 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [FEE045F5], AccurateRip returned [26681F17] (AR v2)
Track 9 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [EB63946F], AccurateRip returned [61D248D5] (AR v2)
Track 10 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 23) [1E9620AE], AccurateRip returned [6C3F4FE7] (AR v2)

No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

End of status report

–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6

[CTDB TOCID: V4Wnf9Fmy3t60tKvnigH_twSN.g-] found
Submit result: V4Wnf9Fmy3t60tKvnigH_twSN.g- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
2 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
3 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
4 | (114/115) Accurately ripped
5 | (114/115) Accurately ripped
6 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
7 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
8 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
9 | (115/115) Accurately ripped
10 | (115/115) Accurately ripped

==== Log checksum 1E99350F90055C4462846F5B96272EBB2A947718EC6767BA503BC159D396B959 ====

CUETools Log

[CUETools log; Date: 28.06.2018 0:20:12; Version: 2.1.5]
[AccurateRip ID: 000d55b0-006a6dfe-81083c0a] found.
Track [ CRC | V2 ] Status
01 [14b9f236|c1d624d7] (00+00/24) No match
02 [1b052f83|b775a539] (00+00/24) No match
03 [a12b25bf|cf6ef83d] (00+00/24) No match
04 [8020635f|59fa979b] (00+00/23) No match
05 [f3b64e5f|d715a06c] (00+00/23) No match
06 [53b98526|0d33910a] (00+00/23) No match
07 [acaf0d98|5e48df55] (00+00/23) No match
08 [7b851931|fee045f5] (00+00/23) No match
09 [531f1935|eb63946f] (00+00/23) No match
10 [6dcb8c9e|1e9620ae] (00+00/23) No match
Offsetted by 6:
01 [f57bdb28] (00/24) No match (V2 was not tested)
02 [2d80b085] (00/24) No match (V2 was not tested)
03 [d4367b05] (00/24) No match (V2 was not tested)
04 [e12b3ded] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)
05 [656f39eb] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)
06 [0202bafc] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)
07 [f829d49a] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)
08 [a4c4e52b] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)
09 [caf73fc9] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)
10 [bd2630ec] (00/23) No match (V2 was not tested)

Track Peak [ CRC32 ] [W/O NULL] [ LOG ]
– 98,8 [5F1D32D2] [348774B9] CRC32
01 97,7 [4A869977] [DE460BA0]
02 97,7 [5B349C4F] [98DC5953]
03 97,7 [6C381D50] [8EC5ABBD]
04 97,7 [D407F8F4] [9424D746]
05 97,7 [5CB7712B] [2D576E97]
06 97,7 [A2030FD7] [1DE275D6]
07 94,4 [A04C6CAB] [A32A18B4]
08 98,8 [763748CC] [EE416ECD]
09 97,7 [58F7952B] [B4DB12E2]
10 97,7 [52834340] [D6ADA79A]

All thanks go to Sket4er

Download Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite - No Mercy In This Land (2018):

Flac
Mp3-320
Scans

DOWNLOAD FROM USENET - 14 DAYS FREE ACCESS