Album review: Seasick Steve, Hubcap Music (Fiction)

Seasick Steve, Hubcap Music (Fiction)

Hubcap Music – so titled because one of the guitars he uses was made from “two hubcaps and a garden hoe” – finds Seasick Steve back on form, with an album steeped in gritty boogie and even grittier attitude.

It's bookended with the revving engines of the “big old farm tractors” hymned on “Down on the Farm”, a typical striding boogie built from minimal slide guitar and steaming drums – a formula whose subtle variations Steve explores throughout, adding mandolin for the break-up plaint “Over You”, and pedal steel for “Purple Shadows”. Most dramatically of all, burring horns and organ lend a brooding Southern Soul mood to “Coast Is Clear”, complete with backing vocalists wailing behind Steve's wracked falsetto.

Download: Down on the Farm; Coast Is Clear; Over You; Keep On Keepin' On