Review, Kérosène #11,
Nov 2000
HALF MAN
- The complete field guide for cynics, Skivfabriken - Border Music, CD, 1999
Does the Baltic Sea flow via the Thames towards the Mississipi River? The anwer
came out just when the record began to play on my turn-table: three times "yes"!
Geographers had not hit upon the idea of such an odd thing before today.
Therefore, contrary to every admitted opinion the Earth remains a land of infinite
exploration. Just like the Blues. We know how the latter is fuckin' seminal.
Its semen keeps on spillin' urbi et orbi and it has just given birth to a a
half man. As for a half, they are four Swedish guys with tremendous talent.
After a 13-year period of gestation during which they have revisited the Blues
and played in every lost pub in their country, they have finally released the
recording I'm talking about now.
This peculiar history enabled them to shape a pretty precious nugget of heavy
blues Rock. It gathers together the best of the spirit of JOHN MAYALL, PETER
GREEN, ROBIN TROWER, CREAM, STEPPENWOLF and TEN YEARS AFTER. It means a lot!
It's a delight to hear.
There are not enough superlatives to describe the timbre of Jan's voice: clear,
warm and powerful� Yeah, that's it but I have to be sparing in my praise: it's
beautiful. And so is the music: omnipresent groove of the bass, psychedelic
guitars and metronomic drums. You'll easily understand why the slider shoots
in the red. Yeah, the driving theme behind this album is ruthlessly bluesy.
It's a juicy alternation for the most traditional harp blues (Blues Ain't Nothing,
When The Train Comes Back, Two Drinks Of Wine), boogies made for long highway
drivin' (Insane, Rodney's Song or the great Hardly Wait which is an incredible
cover of P.J. HARVEY's song) and clever instrumentals which sometimes take the
liberty of going off on a salsa tangent (Two Perverted Men In The Swamp).
HALF MAN han once again set new frontiers for Blues music. A terrible dynamic
Blues which follows the movement started by bands like MULE and carried on by
others like ZEN GUERILLA. By obviously displayin' their roots and treatin'em
to a modern sound, HALF MAN should succeed in founding a new genre. That's the
worst we hope they'll get! These guys are the opposite of a half man. If need
be, this recording reminds us how modern heavy music irremediably owes everything
to the Blues. It's an entirely didactic album the virtue of which should be
to open the mind of the most unyielding stoner Rock fans who sometimes live
in a hyper-narrow universe. Yeah, this album has really got many virtues. First,
it leads us to catch sight of the source. Secondly, it helps to enlarge our
musical insights. Thirdly, it sets out (and I hope so) a brand new future. An
intelligent and pure-bred record. It's very rare.
Fab, KEROSENE # 11
Translated by Oli
