BLUES KARLOFF Light & Shade

Belgian-based supergroup break cover on their second album.

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While on the face of it these Benelux veterans play bar-room blues rock like your mama used to make, this is more than just the musical equivalent of pub grub.

Formed by guitarist Paul ‘Shorty’ Van Camp from Belgian heavy rockers Killer, alongside that band’s erstwhile label boss Alfie Falckenbach on vocals, their 2014 debut Ready For Judgement Day was a spirited mix of covers and originals. On this follow-up, the self-penned stuff again suggests they’re

more than just skilled players, revealing real personality as a band. The hungover stomp of Blackout Blues and I’m A Bluesman’s choppy boogie benefit from sharp, pithy lyrics, and the darker Don’t Lie To Me is positively disturbing in its vow to ‘put a bullet in your head’. So yeah, it’s good-time stuff – but with some big, bad substance behind it.

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.