Artist: THE DELTA SAINTS
Title: THE DELTA SAINTS
2011 European Release combination of two EPs that were released completely independently in the USA
"Pray On EP" (2009) engineered by Nick Spezia and Kevin Twist
Electric Guitar tracks were done by Matt Bray
"Bird Called Angola" (2010) was produced, engineered and Mixed by J. Hall and mastered by Brad Blackwood
Electric Guitar tracks were done by John Shaw
Genre: Blues, Blues-rock
Length: 44:22
Label: Dixiefrog Records (DFGCD 8712)
***Commentary from :
The Delta Saints have spent the last few years cultivating a serious buzz and a strong fan base around Nashville and throughout the American southeast. With their special brand of Blues, Swamp music, revisited Southern Rock and Funk, they epitomize a new generation of artists bearing the torch of glorious bands such as The Allman Brothers or The Black Crowes.
16 February 2009 by Emily J Ramey
The Delta Saints Article
“A Driving Delta Force”
By Emily J Ramey
Written for The Belmont Vision
Dave Supica, Matt Bray, Greg Hommert, Ben Azzi, Ben Ringel
Ben Ringel, Greg Hommert, Matt Bray, Dave Supica, and Ben Azzi are starting a revolution, but certainly not of the stereotypical rock ‘n roll variety, no; rock is too trite for these boys. Theirs is an uprising of the blues. The Delta Saints are taking the south by storm, stealing in and out of venues and hometowns, and letting the echo of their musical explosions rocket them into the proverbial musical realm.
Their sound is an amalgamation of unrefined southern soul and dirty bayou blues. The Delta Saints are as muddy as the Mississippi itself, but instead of drowning the audience, they allow their raw intensity to ooze from the music. The band’s dusky vibes radiate heat and an almost painful fervor, tangible pressure forcing one’s breath from his lungs.
The Delta Saints evoke a kind of vehement magnetism, roused not from glamour or even charisma, but a simple, disquieting fury luring you in. Blistering shards of harmonica lines whine fiercely over a smoldering dobro. The rumbling bass and drums churn one’s stomach and kindle a weighty dynamism. The band seethes with tension and uncouth power before the vocals erupt into a bellowing confrontation. The Delta Saints seem to beg the question, “are you with us?” and dare you to deny them. In the numbing silence after a song, one lurches back into reality to realize he has joined their revolt.
We have Belmont partially to thank for The Delta Saints’ insurrection. The five guys behind the instruments garnered here, after all transferring in separately. Strangely enough, though, their assembly has been several years in the making. Dave Supica, bass, Matt Bray, lead guitar, and Ben Azzi, drums, were in a band together at Kansas University. They broke up, went their separate ways, and all showed up at Belmont last August.
The three of them began collaborating again, but this time with fellow transferee Ben Ringel of Seattle, lead vocals, dobro, and guitar. Ringel’s history springs from Louisiana; it was his fascination with rootsy rock that primarily induced the band’s sound, although, that blues influence suited funk-, Motown-inspired Supica and Azzi as well.
Greg Hommert, harmonica, was last on the bill. Born and raised in St. Louis, Hommert grew up on Blues Traveler and bluegrass, but the roots thing was attractive to him too. Hommert accompanied the four-piece band a few times before coming on as an official member. Then, The Delta Saints were complete.
Seven months later, the boys are working on a seven-track EP, and in the process, they’ve learned a great deal. Dave Supica sums up the band’s mentality faithfully.
“We all get such equal input and we all have to work around each other so much that we are capable of this amazing dynamic you can’t get any other way.”
Despite the balance they’ve discovered, though, Supica admits that “it’s still super frustrating, because we’ve been doing this together for seven months, and we still run into issues every time we play.”
At the end of the day, The Delta Saints realize that all they’re trying to do is “figure out how to work with each other and make a sound that pleasing and appealing to everyone else, to get what we want in there without taking away what the person next to us wants.”
And what do The Delta Saints want? According to Hommert, they’re just working to accomplish “something that’s been done a little differently.”
Equally, the struggle in realizing that goal seems to lay in the distinction they preserve from their predecessors. The band’s true test is incarnating a singular blues spirit in the hearts of five men.
“There’s something to be said for the simplicity that we’ve learned to embrace,” Hommert asserts. “That’s been our hardest problem – for everybody to assume a level of simplicity. Even vocals and songwriting are not without that challenge.”
Supica explains that The Delta Saints have begun to grasp that their genre “is a lot more groove-oriented and just feeling it.”
“But that’s where the power of the music comes from,” Ringel declares.
“The power in it comes from the simplicity and the fact that it’s one driving force,” Ringel goes on. “Lyrically, it tells a simple story that you don’t really have to go into to figure out the meaning of this and the meaning of that and how they tie together; it’s just straightforward.”
“I feel like that the thing I’ve connected to the best my entire life – music like that – and I feel that’s what a lot of other people connect best to as well.”
“Yeah,” Hommert assents. “I really feel that the most accessible quality of our music is what we don’t do, what we don’t say. The things that we leave out are the most accessible because we’re not flashy; we’re simple, and that’s something everybody can buy into.”
The Delta Saints are discovering that to be true: Nashville is selling out fast.
Track List:
01. A Bird Called Angola 3:08 (*)
02. Good in White 3:39 (*)
03. Company of Thieves 3:54 (*)
04. Steppin’ 5:24 (**)
05. Momma 4:16 (**)
06. Pray On 5:25 (**)
07. Voodoo Walk 3:10 (*)
08. Callin’ Me Home 3:43 (*)
09. Swamp Groove 2:58 (*)
10. 3000 Miles 4:13 (**)
11. Train Song 4:25 (**)
(*) Originally "Bird Called Angola"
(**) Originally "Pray on EP"
All songs by The Delta Saints
***Personnel:
Ben Ringel: Vocals, Dobro
Ben Azzi: Drums
Greg Hommert: Harmonica
Dylan Fitch: Guitar
David Supica: Bass
29 September 2009 by Emily J Ramey
The Delta Saints’ “Pray On EP” Review
The Delta Saints
“Pray On EP”
September 2009; Independent
By Emily J Ramey
For nearly a year, all I’ve heard from people talking about The Delta Saints is that they want a recording. But they don’t just want it, they’ve been nearly begging. Despite the fact that the young Nashville band’s real power is in the kinetic heat of their live show, Saints fans couldn’t stand not having those dirty delta blues tunes to spin whenever they pleased. And so, The Delta Saints have answered those requests with their debut EP, Pray On. With such a fiery live reputation, I had pretty high expectations, but with Pray On, The Delta Saints have drowned out any doubts of their fearlessness or brazen strength as musicians.
Sonorous and turbulent, the beginning of each song feels like a storm – stirring in the distance, suppressing tempestuous winds and pounding rain – tensely brooding and deeply natural. “Train Song” roars in with buzzing harmonica and raging drums that sound alarmingly like a speeding steam engine. “Momma” possesses a raucous and roiling chorus that sets it apart from the other tracks. “Pray On” is a heavy, churning tune, showcasing the gravelly, growling vocals and wailing guitar that The Delta Saints have come to be known for. “Steppin’” starts out slow, gathers speed, and quickly engulfs its audience with a rapid-moving current of instrumentation, driven by searing harmonica and thunderous bass lines. “3000 Miles” is like the clearing of the storm. The clouds part for this lyrical and resonant refrain, allowing The Delta Saints to reveal a clearer, lighter side. Then, in the last track, the thunder rolls again more menacingly than ever in “I Feel Rain.” Rumbling drums and howling vocals echo long after the album fades out, tormenting the listener into wanting more.
It might, therefore, surprise their audience to learn that despite their fiercely passionate music, The Delta Saints themselves are all class and old world simplicity. Like ancient bayou blues musicians, they dress in suspenders and collared shirts, allowing their music to be wild and uncouth while they remain refined and worldly. Even their album cover – which looks like a 20th century letter, red wax seal and all – manifests dignified, aesthetic charm. It seems to me that this dichotomy between music and persona is what makes The Delta Saints so fascinating. Yes, their music is an electric riot of sound, but knowing that the musicians are young and capable makes looking toward their future decidedly exciting. I, for one, will rock out to this album, all the while anticipating the day we have a full-length from The Saints.
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Artist: THE DELTA SAINTS
Title: DEATH LETTER JUBILEE
Released: January 24, 2013
Recorded: At Page 2 Studios, Nashville, TN
Produced and Mixed by J. Hall
Mastered by Brad Blackwood at Euphonic Masters
Genre: Blues, Blues-rock
Length: 45:43
Label: Dixiefrog Records (DFGCD 8735)
About Us
The Delta Saints are not what they say they are. Delta? Absolutely. But saints? One might call them “cautionary tales” long before the term “saints” ever came to mind; however, there is something devout about their bayou rock, a dirty, distinct sound they’ve zealously refined on their debut full-length, Death Letter Jubilee. Alternating between raucous melodies and slow-burning odes to the devil in his many forms, Ben Ringel (vocals/dobro), Dylan Fitch (guitar), David Supica (bass), and Ben Azzi (drums) explore themes of difficult love, the wanderer’s high road, and the moral low road using their unconscious fascination with the classical elements – earth, air, fire, and water – as a natural vehicle for their briny narratives.
With Death Letter Jubilee, The Delta Saints are blooming into life not as a pretty flower might, but perhaps a mushroom explosion from an atomic bomb or a feral thunderhead. After two self-released and well received EPs, Pray On and A Bird Called Angola, fans demanded a full length and happily burst through the band’s Kickstarter goal to get it. “That is a feeling like no other,” Ben Ringel claims. “It’s awesome and also humbling. And it’s good pressure on us to succeed. It’s the kind of pressure we were able to harness and strive off of.”
The members of The Delta Saints each moved to Nashville for college in 2007. They first found common ground as old-world-loving, good-bourbon-swilling musicians and began playing together around town before they had any plans to record. As the searing harmonica and howling vocals of their live show began garnering notoriety in a city known well for its indifference to anything less than worthwhile, The Saints rode their roots rock wave right into the studio.
On the heels of 2010’s A Bird Called Angola, the band toured tirelessly, playing more than 150 shows a year, including a slot at Arkansas’ Wakarusa Festival and two summers headlining in Europe during which they performed on the long-running, renowned German TV show Rockpalast. Road tested and weather worn, The Delta Saints have seen wholly organic growth, working diligently in the name of a roots revival alongside fellow up and comers Alabama Shakes and Gary Clark Jr., becoming The Black Keys of a bygone era, all the while harnessing the brackish delta current into something gripping and bold.
“Liar” opens Death Letter Jubilee with a swaggering bass line and a blazing guitar riff, the “Come on!” refrain in the chorus echoing like a command, beckoning listeners to settle in for the long haul. “’Chicago’ is just written about the first time I was ever in Chicago,” Ringel explains. “We were there for 18 hours, and there was a blizzard, so it was snow and wind and bitter cold. Right before bed, I looked out this big third story window, and all I could see was amber light from the streetlights and snow, and for some reason that image just stuck.” The song itself generates a heat fit to ward off that blizzard weather, featuring a rare but incendiary brass section and an immovable beat that marks the tune as an early highlight.
“Death Letter Jubilee” is by far the most magnetic track on the album. There’s something eerie about its cacophonous Orleans-inspired chorus, the warm buzz of harmonica, the tinny trumpet whine, and the way one can’t help but be swept away by the utterly irreverent revelry. “I love songs where sonically you get one emotion from it, and then you look at the lyrics and it’s not at all what you expected,” Ringel says of the song’s musical inspiration. “And everybody has certain emotions that they’re not proud of. The idea that you can be glad about somebody’s ultimate demise… it’s such a negative thing, but everybody feels something a little like that.”
“Jezebel” melts down into a sweltering lo-fi blues number, its minimal instrumentation muddled and viscous as though the song was written on an old front porch when it was just too damn hot to do anything but sing. And like water thrown over flames, the crackling and steaming “Out to Sea” cools the album with its haunting refrain: “Oh, oh, river run, straight out from the hurt that seems to pour from me, and oh, oh, river speak, just haulin’ ass down the Calabash, just headed out to sea.”
“It was a new direction for us on a lot of different fronts,” Ringel admits of the tune. “It’s quiet and it’s sweet and it’s sad. It explores the idea of that cheesy, sappy movie line, ‘I can’t live without you,’ but this is more like, if you’re going to say it, what does that really mean?”
“Sing to Me” starts out sluggishly, forlornly, a rusted locomotive gathering speed with lyrics like, “I come to you now with blood on my hands, the law on my tail, and my conscience be damned, my sweet little babe, my sweet honeybee,” before running off the rails completely, harmonica flashing, drums galloping. And “River,” a second listen gem, is a brief interlude deep into the album in which an ethereal female gospel choir seems to sway and billow in the breeze on balmy Sunday afternoon.
“The main thing we wanted for Death Letter Jubilee was for it to have movement,” Ringel states. “We wanted people to listen and have an emotional journey similar to the one we had while making it.” That journey has left them energized and confident about the future, while still enjoying each stop along the road: “We want to grow, and maybe even grow faster, but we understand that it’s all in due time. We want to fully realize the weight of our experiences, and be able to savor them too.”
Track List:
01. Liar 02:55
02. Chicago 04:36
03. Death Letter Jubilee 04:19
04. Jezebel 03:06
05. Boogie 04:05
06. Out To Sea 03:00
07. Sing To Me 03:04
08. Drink It Slow 04:08
09. From The Dirt 03:30
10. The Devil's Creek 02:55
11. River 01:53
12. Old Man 03:48
13. Jericho 04:17
***Personnel:
Ben Ringel: Resonator, Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Ben Azzi: Drums, Percussion
Greg Hommert: Harmonica
Dylan Fitch: Lead Guitar, Rhythn Guitar
David Supica: Bass Guitar
Delta Saints, The - Death Letter Jubilee
Reviewed by: Gregory Robson (01/24/13)
The Delta Saints - Death Letter Jubilee
Record Label: Self-released
Release Date: Jan. 15, 2013
If the state of Louisiana was looking for a new state song, it might want to give the album Death Letter Jubilee from Nashville's The Delta Saints a spin or two. On this startlingly complete full-length, the quintet whips up some of the finest homespun roots-blues-gospel-folk, this writer has heard in quite some time. The group is anchored by three distinct sounds: the first, vocalist Ben Ringel's growling vocals, second is Ringel's rattling dobro and third is a well-placed harmonica that harkens back to the affecting overtones of Blues Traveler's John Popper.
The album's finest moment is indeed its title track. A triumvirate piece of craftsmanship that rivals anything currently circling the AAA airwaves. Beginning soft and sweet before ping into a dobro-fueled splash of swampy blues-rock. Handclaps and gang vocals enter the fray at the two-minute mark and signal the approach of what is certain to be a crowd-pleaser and perennial live favorite. And from there, the song morphs into a howling blues jam dripping with confidence, swagger and polish. Other high-water marks from the first haf include the swerving opener "Liar," the open-road scorcher "Chicago," and the whip smart "Sing To Me."
The slow-rolling "Drink it Slow," teems with mist and heat, while "From the Dirt," feels akin to a backwoods barbecue. For all their moments of caterwauling and cacophony, few are as ardent as album closer "Jericho." And it is there that The Delta Saints make the most sense. Recognizing the band's strengths and realizing how to harness them is what separates the good from the wannabes. On softer moments, like the understated "Jezebel," the funereal "Out to Sea," and the near-perfect "River," the band hits at moments far too brilliant to be fully understood. That the album comes across as effortless and self-assured as it does is only a testament to the band's creative firepower. Death Letter Jubilee may indeed be just the beginning, but if this is their debut, then there's plenty reason to think, these boys have a lot more walls to shake.
CD Review - The Delta Saints "Death Letter Jubilee"
Posted by Justin Wesley on February 4, 2013 at 5:30pm
The Delta Saints know a thing or two about how to market their sound and personalities. They do exactly that right up front in their bio. On the band’s Facebook page, the Nashville five-piece announce their interests to be “Women, Whiskey and Woes,” while their influences are summed up with “Dames. Working hard. Playing harder.” Under “Artists we also like,” The Delta Saints say, “You name it, we love it.”
Those coming into the band’s debut full-length album armed with that knowledge are likely to be either cynics who view such a bio as hackneyed and reductive, or they’ll be eager audiences invigorated by a band with a like-minded worldview. Admittedly, I’m very much in the latter camp, and I find the workmanlike attitude and lack of irony in the band’s influences to be quite refreshing. When The Delta Saints’ songs support those very interests and influences – even if they aren’t willing to be tied down to a certain genre or specifically name-check the trendy touchstones most other bands do in press releases – it’s easy to embrace the notion of a modest band striving to be accessible.
The band is comprised of Ben Ringel (vocals/dobro), Dylan Fitch (guitar), David Supica (bass), Ben Azzi (drums) and Steven Hanner (harmonica), and they wear their “You name it, we love it” attitude as an informing badge of honor on the debut album, Death Letter Jubilee. Brandishing a sound they coin as “boubon-fueled Bayou rock,” The Delta Saints play a melting pot of blues, folk, country, gospel and roadhouse rock and roll that wears its blue-collar, Prohibition Era attitude on its sleeve but refuses to settle for kitschy revivalism.
Rather than sounding like yet another serious, method-acting Americana band ducking out of the costume department of a small-budget period film irrationally concerned with continuity, The Delta Saints embrace the period garb and traditions without working inside detailed arthouse limitations. The songs on Death Letter Jubilee aren’t remotely interested in being fact-checked for authenticity and accurate period details in their co-opting of gospel and Delta blues traditions, and we’re all the better for it as an audience. There are plenty of stringent revisionists making fantastic music right now that earnestly evokes antiquated times. Death Letter Jubilee is more concerned with you building up a sweat making your legs shaking how they’re known to do down south. The Delta Saints’ impassioned rock and roll songs take delight in being anachronistic while simultaneously dipping into several genres.
The Saints are a rollicking locomotive that makes fantastic use of all its freshly oiled working parts in the creation of a wonderfully humid atmosphere primed for whiskey shots, dollars in jukebox slots, drunken carousing, and future redemption. Supica and Azzi are a forceful tandem driving the rhythms between steady, sexy grooves and thunderous clamor. Hanner injects the frenzied Southern color into the proceedings with rambunctious harmonica riffs flanked by Bayou brass and frequent hand-claps and stomps. Fitch’s guitar is a revelation throughout the album, his bluesy licks routinely harking to Stevie Ray and Double Trouble far more than any sort of early twentieth century influences that inform so many of the more pastoral roots and Americana acts that strive for the accurate period ambiance. Ringel slings a mean dobro that kicks dust up all over Death Letter Jubilee in the company of Fitch’s riffs (see: “Boogie” and the hangman’s death march of “Jezebel”), but it’s Ringel’s growls and Southern punk howls that flesh out the sound of The Delta Saints into a red-blooded, undeniably modern rock and roll machine even while incorporating lyrics and atmospheric touches that beckon old ghosts.
Death Letter Jubilee at its heart is a damn fine front-to-back collection of exceptionally tight rock and roll filled with dirty drunken soul and bouncy, NOLA-indebted mirth. The rock and roll is The Delta Saints’ tried-and-true brew when they step up to the bar, but they knock back shots of gospel (the R&B soul interlude “River,” singing “go down to the river and pray”), Delta blues, and even Spaghetti Western to round out the bourbon-drunk walks of life. The album is a work of intoxicating, earned release, like the mechanic at the end of the bar nodding along to the juke on his stool, all the while taking down his third pint as he takes drags with grease-stained fingers. Or maybe it’s the couple letting loose in the middle of the pe, dancing to the riffs and rhythm thundering from the speakers with zero self-consciousness with respect to whichever patrons are watching..
Such release is perhaps best expressed in Death Letter Jubilee’s thrilling title track. After a promising opener with “Liar” and a mighty track two of “Chicago,” a monster blues howler that simmers and burns to atmospheric perfection with all the right scrappy bells and whistles, The Delta Saints let rip their finest moment in an album packed with winners on “Death Letter Jubilee.” Easing in with bouncing bass line and a solid guitar lead, Ringel chimes in on what starts as a pensive and dark meditation: “And I’ve got a long way to go/ In this room shall I grow / But my time is well worth your pain / Because one day I’m gonna stand over your grave.” On a dime, The Saints uncock every pistol in their company and deliver a delirious frenzy of loose-limbed soul and absolute exaltation. The chorus is a riot of unabashed glee as Ringel sings, “And I’m gonna dance! And I’m gonna sing! And I’m gonna lift my voice! In a death letter jubilee!” It’s expertly organized and produced mass chaos: Ringel howls in the foreground with the support of gospel call-and-response in the background, Hanner’s harmonica dances all around the periphery and pes in and out of the blast coordinates, Fitch blazes through and amplifies the destruction with a furious barroom brawler of a riff, all the while Supica and Azzi pound out the rhythmic mayhem that keeps the riot from spilling out into the streets and pillaging the whole damn neighborhood.
The tremendous chorus of “Death Letter Jubilee” is the sound of a raging locomotive careening off the tracks and laying waste to every body who tries to stand in the way of this euphoric funeral procession. “Death Letter Jubilee” is a total blast of unadulterated vitality, and a lesser band would let such chaos deteriorate into an unsalvageable mess. The Delta Saints, though, are no average bar band. What these Saints pull off over four minutes of “Death Letter Jubilee” is practically miraculous. It’s one of the best songs of this young year, and it’s the brightest star on an album that’s far stronger than most debut records have any right to be.
On their first swing in the big leagues, The Delta Saints have launched a 500-feet blast into the cheap seats for fans of delightfully intoxicated rock and roll and charming Southern soul. Here’s to getting a little down and dirty after all the hard work.
Release Date: 15/02/2013
Genre: Bayou Rock, Blues Fusion, New Orleans Blues
Record Label: Dixie Frog Records
Sounds Like: R.L. Burnside, Steve Earle, The Jeff Healey Band, Warren Haynes
Reviewed By: Baz
This month sees the release of Death Letter Jubilee, the debut full-lengther from Nashville-based blues rockers The Delta Saints.
Now this is a band that I had absolutely no previous knowledge of, and neither did any of the others in the team at RocknReelReviews for that matter. It came in alongside the recently reviewed Slam And Howie And The Reserve Men album and as I have been known to dabble in a bit of folk/roots music in my day, the boss-man decided to fire them my way for lack of a better option.
And thanks be to Baron Samedi that he did because Death Letter Jubilee is a fucking great record. Now that may not be the most eloquent description I have ever penned in my time on this here website but I have to say I don’t really know where to begin with this one. It’s a heady brew of blues, Americana, Cajun, Rock and jazz that creates a potent, pounding, frenzied sound that reeks of New Orleans, the Bayou and the Delta. It’s hard to think of another band that I’ve heard of that sound like this, but it is immediately familiar at the same. What a complete and utter head-fuck!
The Saints use heavy doses of slide guitar/dobro and harmonica to spice their music with that authentic Louisiana flavour. In fact their New Orleans drenched sound makes a bit of a mockery of the fact that these fellas hail from the Nashville, Tennessee, the Country Capital of the world. These five whiter-than-white boys weave all the great parts of traditional black music into their sound, primarily the blues, but vocalist Ben Ringel has a whiskey-throated growl that also harks back to the great R’n'B legends like John Lee Hooker and Soul legends like Ray Charles.
It’s hard to pick out inpidual tracks on Death Letter Jubilee as the whole thing rumbles along like an out of control Mardi Gras float, but special mention has to be made of Boogie which takes the intensity of rock music and mashes it together with the mother-fuckin monster of all blues riffs and smothers it in harmonica licks to create a song that makes me want to headbang and dance all at the same time. Boogie is immediately followed up by the painfully haunting acoustic track Out To Sea that takes you from the highest points of the previous track to the slumping lows of one man’s loneliness played out through a solitary guitar. Solid gold fucking genius.
Unfortunately it’s just a bit too early in the year for me to be handing out one of my hen’s teeth 5-star reviews. I didn’t experience that elusive life-changing epiphany moment that I did with say last year’s Menzingers album, but Death Letter Jubilee is without doubt an astounding collection of songs.
I would give my left nut to be sat in some smoky New Orleans juke joint right now, sipping bourbon and watching these guys playing on a sweat-drenched stage. To be honest, short of a sizable lottery win that just aint gonna happen. So instead I’m gonna pour myself a large one, sit back, stick this record on and shut my eyes; and maybe, just maybe, when I open my eyes some snake-eyed voodoo Loa will offer me the chance to do just that in exchange for my soul. Gotta be honest here folks, I’m gonna be sorely fucking tempted.
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发表于 2020-1-11 15:26:33
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