Seven albums into their career and Indiana-based heavy blues bruisers the Cold Stares just seem to get better and better, the period since signing to Mascot Records in 2021 for their Heavy Shoes album proving to be a bit of a purple patch in terms of quality and development. Originally forming in 2012 as a duo of guitarist/singer Chris Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins, the addition in 2022 of bass player Bryce Klueh for last year’s very fine Voices album has turned them into a classic power trio to be reckoned with.
Their upward trajectory continues with The Southern, so named because Tapp felt it would be interesting to lean into the southern rock label they often get tagged with and allow his and Mullins’s Kentucky heritage to form the impetus behind their next batch of songs.
The results are very much in the modern blues style they’ve been cultivating since their inception, but there’s a touch more emphasis on themes of family and tradition running through Tapp’s lyrics, the key track being the rootsy, resonator guitar-driven Coming Home, which helps push the musical scope of the album into fresh territory. The fusion of styles, though, is pretty seamless throughout, with classic rock influences and contemporary nuances complementing each other across the 11 tracks.
Opener Horse To Water boasts a driving riff that owes a lot to AC/DC in its crisp precision and efficiency, and there’s more than a smidge of Beating Around The Bush to the insistent boogie of Looking For A Fight, which defies expectation halfway through where it sounds like Rival Sons have crashed the party and Tapp lays down some mightily fuzz-drenched riffage in lieu of a guitar solo.
Those heroically dirty guitars appear again on Level Floor Blues and Woman, adding extra weight to an already heady mix of pain and ecstasy, and the desire to experiment with the elemental power of the blues adds greater variety to the songwriting on the album.
Confession kicks off like Cream or Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac before seguing into an atmospheric instrumental jam to fade; Blow Wind Blow is a gothically desolate lament; and that mournful resonator guitar turns up again on Mortality Blues. Even the more straight-ahead tracks – Seven Ways To Sundown, No Love In The City Anymore and Giving It Up – are delivered with a conviction that surely points to greater achievements in the future.
Southern rock, blues rock, what does it matter what you tag it when the tracks are this good?
