The hype drummed up in the months leading to the release of Benjamin Booker’s eponymous debut LP has been nothing short of incredible. The musician — who spent a good dozen years in Tampa Bay and re-located to New Orleans with bandmate/drummer Max Norton last year — inked a deal with ATO Records only a few months after receiving a “Best New Band” award from CL, and hit the studio with producer Andrija Tokic (of Alabama Shakes fame) to record this past December.
Benjamin Booker is high-spirited, thoughtfully crafted garage-rock ‘n’ punk-blues served with a healthy slathering of greasy soul. Booker’s subdued yet dynamic magnetism shines through on the disc; you can feel his contained energy in vocals varying between low rasping whisper-croons, vibrato-strewn groans and wildly ragged howls soaring over guitars that are thrashed, reverbed and distorted into fuzzed-out crackles.
First single “Violent Shiver” kicks off the 12-song set with vintage rockabilly guitar lines, rapid pounding rhythms, and charming “hoo-hoo-hoos,” while follow-up “Always Waiting” makes good use of slow-fast-slow tempo changes and echoing guitar whammys, as does the galloping “Old Hearts.” Another pace-changing stand-out, “Have You Seen My Son” (which originally appeared on Booker’s four-song acoustic EP), is a barn-burning rock ode that drives and rages then brakes to a near stop halfway through, kick-starting with marching drums and crunchy guitars and building to a crashing peak before eventually slowing down again to an ominous seething skulk. Despite all the noisy guitar-driven songwriting, Booker can get more brooding and gospel bluesy, à la “Slow Coming,” a slow rolling number marked by rising organ tones, while “I Thought I Heard You Screaming” is carried on a soft melodic groove and barely-there percussion.
Hard to find much wrong with this album, other than a certain derivative quality that’s most noticeable in “La Grange”-inspired track, “Chippwa.” Overall, Benjamin Booker lives up to all the hype.
Critics' Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
Benjamin Booker returns to Tampa Bay to play the Coral Skies Music Festival at MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa on Sat., Oct. 25.
This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 3, 2014.
