Altered Five Blues Band : Ten Thousand Watts
Altered Five Blues Band
Ten Thousand Watts
The bad boys from Milwaukee, The Altered Five Blues Band are back. Bringing all the blues power they could muster in their fifth album Ten Thousand Watts, scheduled for release in fall of 2019 from Bind Pig records. The supercharged blues party Is sure to satisfying the needs of dedicated fans worldwide. The stalwart quintet led by steamroller vocalist Jeff Taylor and live wire guitarist Jeff Schroedl, teamed up again with Grammy winning producer Tom Hambridge in Nashville at Ocean Way Studios in the spring of 2019. Hambridge is a Producer with the Midas touch who is capable of bringing out the absolute best performances from the musicians he works with. The rhythm section of Mark Solveson on Bass, Ray Tevich on keys and drummer Alan Arber are transformed into a wrecking crew of blues rock might, delivering the goods on 12 original tunes full of contagious hooks and infectious grooves that will tantalize your ears and super charge your soul.
The band invited Steve Cohen to join them on the opening track ‘Right On Right On,’ adding some high voltage Blues Harp to the full tilt boogie call to arms Blues party anthem. The fellas then get down to business with Schroedl dropping a gritty riff leading into tale of tough love ‘To Mad To make Up.’ The muscular title track ‘Ten Thousand Watts,’ has “JT” Taylor detailing his abundant powers of seduction and satisfaction, but then playing the humble fool on the rollicking ‘Mischief Man.’ The spunky Chicago shuffle “Great Minds Drink Alike,” celebrates good times with a good woman at your favorite dance hall on a Friday night. JT and the crew then slow the tempo to pontificate on their love for the music that inspires them on the sentimental ‘Don’t Rock My Blues,’ that features some very B.B King like guitar work. Arber fuses together a rhumba with the second line on the New Orleans flavored ‘Sweet Marie,’ with Tevich tossing in some convincing professor Longhair piano. JT digs deep on the emotional Blues torch song ‘Dollars And Demons,’ then plays the role of a man done wrong ‘I Hate To Leave You.’ The swampy ‘Let Me Do The Wrong Thing,’ is a satirical turn of phrases about wanting to bust out of the mold and taste some forbidden fruit. Another swinging boogaloo beat from Arber sets the table for JT preach and Schroedl to do some clever finger picking on the electrifying tune ‘Half Of Nothing,’ before Cohen and his Blues harp rejoins the band to bid us farewell on the dynamic closer ‘Let Me Be Gone.’
A 10,000 watt generator can give you enough power to run large appliances during a power outage, so you are going to wish you had one when you need it the most. The Altered Five Blues Band live up to that pronouncement by coming to our rescue and lighting up the night with this electrostatic collection of high voltage Blues, Rock and Soul.