Bust (Independent)

At the end of “Backwards”, the lead track on Bust, there’s what sounds like a couple of people in a bar clapping. That raises questions as to what’s going on on the second release from Delta deconstructionists this is THE SHOES.

Did the two-piece record the six songs on Bust in a genuine blues bar—not one of those fancy places with 16 craft beers on tap, but instead a rural-South joint where there’s sawdust on the floor and blood on the sweat-streaked walls? Do we only get a couple of folks clapping because everyone else has passed out after doing bathtub-gin shots to ragged thumpers like “When the Sun Goes Down”? And why the hell hasn’t someone put this is THE SHOES instead of Blue-goddamned-Rodeo on the main stage of the Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival?

Headlining status at major musical events has so far eluded Sabrina Robson (vocal acrobatics, harmonica) and Jereme Collette (guitar, kick drum, and singing), but sooner or later purists are going to stumble upon the duo, which once again sounds like it’s been raised on unfiltered Mississippi swamp water. Dirt-caked-blues fans will thrill to the electro-fried slide guitar in “Long Gone”, while those with a taste for southern-gospel soul will find plenty to love in “Unfaithful”.

Things come to a close with the ground-down-by-life “So Tired”, an unvarnished country number that ends with nothing but warm piano. No one claps at the end, which is perhaps a good thing considering it suggests that the dude on the ivories escaped whatever joint Bust was recorded in without being shot in the back.