Scott H. Biram
Bad Ingredients (Bloodshot)Contrary to both the back cover and liner notes to eighth full-length Bad Ingredients, Scott H. Biram isn’t just a one-man band. He’s the one-man band, a CB radio poet cultivating his own genre – Lo-Fi Mojo – for the past decade. Bad Ingredients mines the best of Biram’s previous two Bloodshot platters, including the midnight ramble of 2006’s Graveyard Shift (“Broke Ass”) and its bruised hangover Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever three years later (Delta-deep lament “Just Another River”), but there’s far more at work here. The shattered, highway contemplation of “Open Road” is reflected in waves of distortion and Western-noir guitar à la Neil Young’s Le Noise. Laced with Walter Daniels’ searing saxophone, voodoo boogie “I Want My Mojo Back” blows smokestack R&B, while Biram gets his ham glazed in “Victory Song,” on par with of Black Joe Lewis’ Scandalous. Penitentiary blues “Born in Jail” walks the green mile shoulder to shoulder between Lightnin’ Hopkins (“Have You Ever Loved a Woman”) and Bill Monroe (“Memories of You Sweetheart”). From cow-punk (“Killed a Chicken Last Night”) and DIY metal (“Dontcha Lie to Me Baby”) to gritty classic rock (“Wind up Blind”), Biram proves the ultimate outlaw. (One-man band Scott Biram loads into the Continental Club Saturday, Oct. 8.)
This article appears in September 30 • 2011.