Left Lane Cruiser: Claw Machine Wizard (CD on Alive Natural Sound)

Band: Left Lane Cruiser
Label: Alive Natural Sound
Title: Claw Machine Wizard

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Band:Left Lane Cruiser
Title:Claw Machine Wizard
Reviewed By:Kimberly Bright
Date Published:18/07/2017

Label:Alive Natural Sound
Format:CD
Release Year:2017
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Guitarist and vocalist Freddy J. Evans IV has been recording hard rock-dirty punk blues for over a decade, originally as a duo with drummer Brenn Beck and now with Pete Dio, the one with the amazing sideburns. Pete joined Left Land Cruiser on their 2015 album 'Dirty Spliff Blues' and does a raucous job on their seventh studio album, 'Claw Machine Wizard', continuing their remarkably original sound, self-described as “gut-bucket blues”, with several curveballs thrown at the listener.

Left Lane Cruiser are from Fort Wayne in North Eastern Indiana. With so many manufacturing jobs leaving the medium-sized city (with a population of about a quarter of a million) since the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was also massively impacted by the recession ten years ago and continues to struggle. The city is one of the population centres encircled, connected, and bypassed by the perpetually busy, commerce-heavy Interstate 69, once referred to as the NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) Highway, that was intended to join Canada and Mexico. It’s been under constant construction at one point or another since the Clinton administration. No one is ever likely to write a song – blues or otherwise – about I-69.

Being so far from cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, artists in Fort Wayne and surrounding Allen County are accustomed to looking after their own scene and Cultural District. Left Lane Cruiser and their amazing blues hybrid were introduced to an international audience by the inclusion of their music on the television show 'Breaking Bad', in addition to widely touring for years. They sound like a mid-‘70s white blues band influenced by Southern rock and Motown and heavy on slide guitar. Freddy’s gruff, smoky voice sounds at various times like Terry Reid, Mojo Nixon, and a gritty young Paul Rodgers.

The hard-edged opening track 'Claw Machine Wizard', comparing the blues to being stuck in a claw machine, doesn’t do the rest of the album immediate justice in the same way that 'The Point is Overflowing' and the relentless 'Lately' do. 'Booga Chaka', 'Liquor Store', and the sexy, snarling 'Burn Em Brew' revolve around brilliantly catchy guitar riffs, and 'Still Rollin' sounds like a stellar impromptu late-night bar jam. 'Lay Down' stands out as different from the other songs in its laid-back groove. Freddy’s choice to tone his voice down to a sensual slur proves that he is being truthful when he says that they listen to a lot of James Brown, Funkadelic, Parliament, Charles Bradley, and MF Doom on the road. 'Smoke Break' is the album’s sole instrumental, which would happily fit into a Northern Soul night somewhere, and gives listeners a glimpse into what surprises their loose live performances can provide.

Left Lane Cruiser are adept at avoiding old blues clichés and tropes, but it wouldn’t be a real blues album without one difficult woman causing problems. And she is here, on the stomping, high-energy 'High Maintenance', which could be a long-lost early Robert Palmer song. The opening percussion could easily be the sound of stiletto heels storming bitchily away. “High maintenance/Testing my patience/Man, I can’t take it/can’t keep her happy no matter how hard I try.”

A darker but more thoughtful moment on the album is “Indigenous,” in which Sabbath heavy metal meets the Allman Brothers as “darkness falls across the land.” “Rise up, my friend,” Freddy sings on this blue-collar anthem about brotherhood, reminding us that we all “have to lift each other up.” He mentions their triumphant gig at Le Point Ephemere in Paris (“That French house was packed”) only a few days after the November 13, 2015 terrorist attack on the Bataclan. The lyrics also refer to KKK Grand Wizards raising their hands, a disturbing image even well out of Trump country. Freddy’s common-man, common sense appeal to human kindness during an otherwise hard partying record is welcome indeed.

Track Listing:

01) Claw Machine Wizard
02) The Point Is Overflowing
03) Booga Chaka
04) Lay Down
05) Burn Em Brew
06) Still Rollin
07) Lately
08) High Maintenance
09) Smoke Break
10) Indigenous

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Latest album from Left Lane Cruiser which proves a rootsy, blues rock, Everyman stomp from the American Midwest

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Claw Machine Wizard - CD
Latest album from Left Lane Cruiser which proves a rootsy, blues rock, Everyman stomp from the American Midwest

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