The Hardest Walk

Amazon.co.uk The Hardest Walk marks album four from Johnny Walker’s hard-touring Soledad Brothers, one of the primary movers of the Detroit garage-rock scene. It would be hugely unfair to suggest that the Soledad’s success is partly down to their close friendship with Jack and Meg White, but it’s tempting to think that the White Stripes’ experimental Elephant has led to newly progressive ambitions in blues-rock, a newly broad scope that The Hardest Walk capitalises on impressively. Whereas earlier albums saw the Soledad Brothers stripped down and raw as a fresh wound, here they’ve evolve into a somewhat fuller sound courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Denman, who brings organ, sitar, and banjo to the party. Of course, there’s still twitchy, high-octane numbers like the Dylan-esque "Downtown Paranoia Blues" and the ‘60s R&B-flavoured "Crooked Crown" to careen along like a runaway steam train. But it’s the slower tracks that show off the Soledad Brothers’ range: the eerie, reverb-soaked "Dark Horses", or the skeletal break-up blues of "Let Me Down" which finds Walker exorcising the ghosts of a dead relationship over the desolate hum of a vintage organ. --Louis Pattison