GOV'T MULE: Heavy Load Blues (BLUES,-): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

After five years of absence Gov’t Mule is back ! Not with one album, but with two! Recorded at the same time in two different studios, they will nevertheless be released a few months apart. And while waiting for the one that is announced as a typical opus of the band, here is "Heavy Load Blues" which, as its name indicates, pays tribute to a more traditional blues.

Mixing covers and compositions of Warren Haynes, who hesitated for a long time to make a solo album, it is nevertheless a group work. The four companions even wrote a track together, the bouncy 'Wake Up Dead' with an unstoppable groove and an excellent guitar / keyboard duel on its solo. It is also easy to recognize the touch of the US band when it launches into one of its legendary jams in the middle of 'Snatch It Back And Hold It' by Amos Wells Blakemore Jr. Because this is the strength of Gov't Mule when it practices the exercise of the cover: its identity is so strong that it immediately marks the track it interprets. The best examples are the unavoidable 'Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City' by Bobby 'Blue' Bland and 'Make It Rain' by Tom Waits. Having to bear the comparison with the Dantesque version of Whitesnake, the first one benefits from a slightly faster tempo and from solos on which Warren Haynes makes his guitar cry. As for the second, it becomes a march through the desert and heat mists with its hammering riff.

What is also impressive on this opus is the perfect coherence between the covers and the compositions that easily hold the comparison. It will be difficult for a non-initiated to make the difference. It is true that the whole was recorded in live conditions and on good old analogical material. But whether it's 'Hole In My Soul' with its horn section and very Gary Moore-like spirit, or the very clean 'Heavy Load' and 'Black Horizon', these tracks seem to be taken directly from the origins of the genre while being written by Warren Haynes. In the middle of such a festival, it becomes almost impossible to privilege some tracks over others, even if the whole is as varied as coherent. Nevertheless, we will stand out the catchy '(Brother Bill) Last Clean Shirt' by Charles Otis, a 'If Heartaches Were Nickels' composed at the time for Joe Bonamassa ("A New Day Yesterday" - 2000), and a monumental and hypnotic 'I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)' by Chester Arthur Burnett which will bring you to the doors of trance.

Demonstration of a know-how now entered in the legend and tribute to a historical genre, "Heavy Load Blues" marks the return of Gov't Mule. Bewitching and varying the ambiences, this opus imposes itself as a new proof of the undivided domination of the band in a genre which does not lack pretenders. We will also note a Deluxe edition proposing a double album enriched with unreleased and live tracks. With the little brother to be released in the coming weeks, it is an understatement to say that fans are spoiled. - Official website

GOV'T MULE

HEAVY LOAD BLUES

AUTRE LABEL

BLUES