The Blue Hearts: Press

This is another track from The Blue Hearts who I've been playing almost mercilessly over the last month or so

“An album with slick, soulful and dirty tunes, definitely one to get excited about”

"Place together Elvis and Iggy in a lift and add Hank Marvin in the corner and you’re somewhere near but with a sweet female backing voice and good use of violins as a bonus on reaching the top floor"

Beefy rock rhythms snake around a catchy pop sensibility, with accomplished performance delivered by all. Genuinely good songs. The sonic achievement is usually reserved for international names. Definitely worth checking out

Johnny Cash jamming with The Clash in Nashville. I love the album..its certain to be in the top 30 rock albums of the year on my show.

South Coast neon rock purveyors The Blue Hearts have delivered an album choc full of seedy late night inner city lounge rock. The more I listened to this album the better it got. I found myself warming to the 'Jukebox Of Maladies' with all its 50's and 60's guitar licks, especially 'Velvet Prison', but as the album wore on the better the tracks got. 'The Wagon Rolls' is a great song as is 'Snake Oil Sam' but the best track on offer would be the lap steel lament of 'You Never Let Me Bleed', coming across like Chuck Prophet jamming with the Bad Seeds with some great playing. 'Ballad Of A Bad Boy' reminds me of Mozzer's band when they get nasty with some great lyrics to boot.

All in all a surprisingly decent effort and one that crept up on me - check it out you might just surprise yourself with some Neon Rock!

"Country streaked psychobilly (Silver Dollar Girl, Velvet Prison), twangy desert reverb guitar country (When You Shine Down,

 The One Who Loves),  keening pedal steel and voice soaring ballads (You Never Let Me Bleed) and dirty blues (Jukebox of Maladies, Snake Oil Sam)

 with a splodge of alt-country psychedelia on top (A Dying Star)" - Roots & Branches

 

" 'Jukebox Of Maladies' packs a lot into the eleven tracks.

 It's a full blooded sound with bucketloads of drive and all those great rock 'n' roll themes"

This is the kind of thing you could only find under a flickering neon light down a back street somewhere. You might just have the time of your life, or you may be dead before the night is over, but either way, you’ve just got to go in…

If you like your American blues, alt country and the dark parts of Mr J Cash, then this is for you. If you’re looking for Tammy Wynette, you’re in the wrong bar, son

Jukebox of Maladies is the new album from The Blue Hearts and is being launched nationally on the 21^st of October. Alongside a new line-up, the band are also showcasing a brand new sound, citing influences as diverse as Kasabian and The Doors, a real step up from the beats of their first album Lullaby for the Lost.

The sound has been dubbed ‘Neon Rock’ and with good reason. While they retain much of the classic rock rhythms, with established pop hooks and provocative lyrics, they manage to weave in some ethereal harmonies that add great depth to their sound. Yet, unlike so many contemporary groups that attempt to create the great new genre, The Blue Hearts have lost nothing of what makes a classic song and, consequentially, a well crafted album.

Opening the album is Silver Dollar Girl, in many respects it could fit easily into The Doors classic Morrison’s Hotel album, yet the driving rhythm is broken up by pop-esque interludes that, no doubt, make it perfect for today’s radio play. The title track, Jukebox of Maladies, features some classy bass lines and a dreamy, whacked out guitar play that gives it the air of a summer psychedelic rock classic. Lead vocalist, Bob Powell, has a great, driving power in his voice that he manipulates wonderfully on Ballad of a Bad Boy. Though my personal favourite track is Snake Oil Sam – a real gritty and dirty track that any bluesman would be moodily proud of.

Rock n’ roll for the modern age, well needed and divinely delivered. For more information on The Blue Hearts, and I heartily recommend checking them out and getting the new album once it’s released on the 21^st of October, please visit their website: http://www.bluehearts.co.uk  

The Blue Hearts is the band that their home town of Brighton can be proud of, instead of averting its eyes from the electronic histrionics of Mr. Slim, it can now glory in the rich, velvety tales offered up by Dark Side Of Town. Although I've never been to Brighton, I find it hard to believe that its genteel reputation conceals the seamier side of life, so brilliantly and vividly portrayed here by The Blue Hearts. But from wherever the tales have sprung, they are intriguing and wonderfully atmospheric. The band is fronted by singer Bob Powell, a man with voice so rich, textured and laced with menace that a simple hello must seem like a portent of doom. Given that on Dark Side Of Town all the hearts are broken and the flowers wilted, comparisons with Cave and Cohen are understandable, valid and not at all over-flattering, The Blue Hearts reach the same depths as their illustrious fellow-travellers. But the growing suspicion is that there is a collective twinkle in the eye of the band, paradoxically it is first hinted at on Downhearted, surely nothing can be as bad or bleak as this song suggests. The smell of irony wafts through. Dark Side Of Town is built on the raw talent of its creators rather than clever construction. It is a back to basics album that revels in the absence of slick production. Mother Of Faith is a country song with a substantial amount of flesh on its bones, its both dark and solid. Neither The Blue Hearts nor Dark Side Of Town slot easily into any recognised pigeonhole. It hovers somewhere between gothic country and rock but what it does have is an irrepressible spark that keeps you listening and listening

The Blue Hearts: Straight Out Of Gotham! 14 August 2005
If ever popular music is to be remembered as a melting-pot of non-specific styles and defining purposes - then the tag would surely be made in the name of The Blue Hearts.



The Blue Hearts - Dark Side Of Town

The band may, reportedly, live within a stones throw of Nick Cave's abode and cite Leonard Cohen as a kin-like lyrical soul brother, but they needn't name-drop - as The Blue Hearts sit proud in a genre-pool all of their own.

From skip along melody-soaked opener, 'In The Shadow 0f Love', to waltz-time closer, 'Tongue Tied', this Brighton-based seven piece's forthcoming album, 'Dark Side Of Town', is a welcome addition to the ever growing list of potential albums-of-the-year.

Each of the ten tracks that make 'Dark Side Of Town' such a joy to take in one complete sitting, are packed full of twisted tales of dark Bad Seeds-like misfits and outsiders.

The Blue Hearts having been releasing music since 1993. In fact, two of their members featured in the original line-up of Brighton's most famous collective, The Piranhas. There's a feeling that with 'Dark Side Of Town' their time in the spotlight may have come now, rather than never.

If you liked Nick Cave's Lyre of Orpheus or have any affinity towards alt-country bands

like Willard Grant Conspiracy then chances are you will be seriously taken with The Blue Hearts'

blend of beautifully crafted country-blues story-telling. Simply a great set of songs set to take you to great places

To give you a measure of its diversity, it wouldn't be too strong to say that if every musician in the world making any music other than alternative country died tomorrow, rock music would suddenly be in its healthiest state for years.

Brighton's The Blue Hearts' third release, Dark Side Of Town brings us ten tales of broken spirits and bleeding souls drowning themselves at the bottom of a grubby whisky glass. We always thought Brighton was quite a lively place but with the crown prince of darkness, Nick Cave, living just round the corner, there seems to be some kind of vortex of bleakness just off the Weston Road.

And it's with Mr Cave's sombre supine psycho-billy that The Blue Hearts find their spiritual home. That's not to say that there isn't the occasional bow to Brighton's other best known band, The Levellers but then again no more than those other frenetic fiddlers, The Waterboys (the surprisingly uptempo Mother of the Faith). However it's when The Blue Hearts stray into the cracked alt.country territory of Seattle's The Walkabouts with frontman Bob Powell pulling his best Cave phrasings: Downhearted (I could swear, I could holler, I can bet my bottom dollar) or Strange Fruit Tree with its eerily gentle backing vocals that the album works best rather than the more straightforward Elvis-country of the title track

Great Pop Hooks - a debut that will make you want to see them play live

A sparky and stylish slice of UK country-rock, full of urgency and passion

A great British sound, laid back and musically excellent: