Blood's Too Rich

Album Review

Canadian singer/songwriter Luke Doucet plays guitar in Sarah McLachlan's touring band, and knows a thing or two about making the strings sing. He's played in Veal, his own garage-psychedelic band, and released several singer/songwriter albums noted for his multifaceted guitar work, although they've been lyrically spotty and a bit overwrought. On Blood's Too Rich, Doucet reinvents himself as an Americana — or is that Canadiana? — artist fronting a twang-heavy band that puts plenty of muscle into his tunes. Doucet plays all the guitar parts and neatly juggles pedal steel, reverb-heavy country, and crunchy rock riffs to augment his tunes. The White Falcon — Rich Levesque, bass; John Dinsmore, six-sting bass; Paul Brennan, drums; and Melissa McClelland, backing vocals — add plenty of drive to the arrangements, although they're augmented by a long list of extra side persons without any album credits to tell you who's playing what. "Long Haul Driver" starts with a slow acoustic intro and builds to a Waylon Jennings beat that drives the tune down the open road with a jaunty thumping grace. The title track is a reverb-soaked song of love gone wrong with a cryptic lyric and a solid country solo that alternates between rolling bass notes and rippling arpeggios. The Cure's "The Lovecats" is a jazzy, new wave romp that'll have you bouncing out of your seat and onto the nearest dancefloor. "First Day (In a New Hometown)" delivers both uncertainty and jubilation as the singer settles down in an unfamiliar place to escape a failed relationship. The poignant tune balances equal measures of relief and regret. Doucet's melodies are always striking, but often the lyrics don't deliver on the music's emotional promise. "Take You Home" opens promisingly with thundering power chords that bring to mind Link Wray's "Rumble," and Doucet's Echoplexed guitar solo is tasty, but the lyric is forgettable. "The Comandante" has a midtempo Springsteen-meets-Dylan groove and a surrealistic lyric that tries too hard, or maybe not hard enough, to evoke a mysterious vibe. Again, the tune is strong and the playing dynamic, but the lyric needs work. "Bombs Away," another spooky vignette, has a dark musical atmosphere that the lyric doesn't complement. "Motorbike" fares better, a gentle guitar and snare drum-dominated track that speaks about a midlife crisis with a perfect touch of self-effacing humor and understated poetry. Doucet's vocal here is a beautiful world-weary moan, complemented by a nice, jazzy Mark Knopfler-influenced guitar solo. With the slower, weaker tunes bunched together on the second half of the album, a record that started off with plenty of punch slowly peters out. ~ j. poet, Rovi