Review of Duty To Warn by Back In Rock Magazine (Italy), writer da Alberto Centenari
Seattle year of grace 2023; the blues in the famous (at least for those who live on Rock) city in the state of Washington is played as Gravelroad plays it.
For those who don’t know the Seattle band, I remind you that we are certainly not talking about newbies, but a quartet of rockers who have been active for twenty years now and have nine albums under their belt.
“Duty To Warn” is the title of the new album, four years after the previous “Crooked Nation” (a lifetime by their standards), which sees the quartet once again protagonists of a good work, bloody, dirty, alternative.
Alternative is, in my opinion, the key word to read the sound of Gravelroad , a blues that, while bringing lovers of classic sounds closer, flatters listeners accustomed to modern and, indeed, alternative sounds.
Garage, Metal, Rock’n’roll and Alternative make up the high-proof Blues cocktail that Gravelroad , now almost in double figures in full-length releases, have been concocting for years and which they confirm in this new album, produced by guru Jack Endino in Seattle.
Gravelroad are bluesmen through and through, having collaborated for a long time with one of the most talked about legends of the genre, James Lewis Carter Ford, alias T-Model Ford until his death in Mississippi in 2013, at the uncertain age of ninety and a life spent between prison, trouble and the devil’s music, and with whom they recorded two albums, “Ladies Man” in 2009 and “Taledragger” in 2011 .
“Duty To Warn” shifts the band’s sound slightly towards a less classic proposal, more accessible even for those who are not very familiar with the genre.
Joe Johnson (Bass), John Kirby Newman (Guitar, Vocals), Martin Reinsel (Drums) and Stefan Zillioux (Guitar, Vocals) have given voice to their concept of Blues Rock with an excellent album, confirming themselves on the scene as a proposal of quality and remarkable originality.
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