"Unclaptonise the blues"... Well, we can count on Hell's Kitchen and their 14 tracks from "Mr Fresh" their new album to do so. Continuing a new reading of urban blues with the same passion and daring already bursting on the abrasive "Doctor's Oven", the trio has gone back "to the Devil" here, yet again, scraping the blues hard against unruly rock, slashed with strident punk, to get rid of any last shreds of respectability. Listen to "No Guts" very loudly and you'll understand. The good old blues... They shake and shove and actually crash into it for shock treatment. We want more ! You don't go to a concert or listen to a Hell's Kitchen album timidly tapping your foot, dreading to hear "Quiet !".
If these blues remain as exciting and dangerous in 2009 as in the 40's when it got it's first electric shock, it's thanks to Taillefert C. (drums, percussion), Monney B. (vocals, guitars, noises) and Ryser C. (doublebass) who have, for the last few years, applied without frills, in studios or when touring around Europe, exciting sound treatments and rhythms essential for it's rejuvenation.
Today Hell's Kitchen knows the recipe for the spicy sauce that gives the blues it's initial roughness, without forgetting it's velvet glove side studded with nostalgia as in "Flowers" and it's double, the beautiful and heart-rending "Flowers revisited" with a string arrangement that lets us imagine the ensuing tracks...
But let's not get side-tracked : despite it's contrasts and surprises, "Mr Fresh" is above all a blues record : free and strong.
