Artist: Ben Miller Band
Album: Any Way, Shape Or Form
Bitrate: 259kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: New West Records
Genre: Southern Rock
Size: 89.11 megs
PlayTime: 0h 45min 46sec total
Rip Date: 2014-08-12
Store Date: 2014-08-15
Track List:
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01. The Outsider 3:06
02. You Don't Know 3:32
03. Ghosts 3:54
04. Hurry Up And Wait 3:03
05. I Feel For You 3:53
06. 23 Skidoo 4:23
07. Burning Building 3:07
08. The Cuckoo 3:11
09. Twinkle Toes 2:37
10. Life On Wheels 3:20
11. No War 4:26
12. Prettiest Girl 4:15
13. King Kong 2:59
Release Notes:
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Joplin, Missouri is a two-county town in the southwestern part of the state. Its
population belongs to a metro area more than three times its size, and provides
economic opportunity and sustenance for citizens of not only its home state but
also neighboring Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. It links the Great Plains and
the Ozark Mountains, while its cultural life is informed by the Midwest, South,
and West. On Any Way, Shape or Form, Joplin's native sons the Ben Miller Band
dig deeper than ever before into this cross pollination of musical styles and
come out sounding like no one but themselves. Producer Vance Powell -- whose
experience with roots artists includes Wanda Jackson and Buddy Guy, as well as
rocker Jack White -- understands BMB's "Ozark Stomp" implicitly. The rumbling
opener "The Outsider" evokes Ralph Stanley, Dock Boggs, and the Bad Livers with
Miller's banjo, Doug Dicharry's drums and washboard, and Scott Leeper's washtub
bass, with chanted backing vocals and a stinging lead slide guitar break by
guest Chad "Gravy" Graves. "You Don't Know" melds vintage ZZ Top-cum-John Lee
Hooker boogie, with soulful country and Ozark-style back-porch singing. The
progressive country bluegrass in "Ghosts" is a set highlight, as is the crunchy
rocker "Burning Building." The only cover here is a reading of the utterly
mysterious traditional tune "The Cuckoo." In this version, the 13th Floor
Elevators' garage psychedelia meets Ozark and Appalachian blues in a wind tunnel
of reverb, knob-twiddling electronic sounds, rippling guitars, and tribal
drumming. Things calm down on the barn waltz "Twinkle Toes," as Dobro, banjo,
percussion, and washtub bass all meet in a cut-time country bluegrass singalong.
The chug and churn of "Life on Wheels" features a moaning harmonica, brash
guitars, and triple-time rhythms that meld Johnny Cash's rhythmic country
rockabilly to garage rock aesthetics. An old-time parlor waltz lies at the heart
of "Prettiest Girl," but is considerably expanded to include mariachi horns
without losing its thread. Two cuts in this 13-song set don't work: the faux
1920s whitebread jazz of "23 Skidoo" with a terribly affected vocal, and "No
War," an electric topical folk song recalling the Phil Ochs of the late '60s
musically, but whose lyrics fall short of that lofty mark. These are small
errors rather than overreaching excess, however. Any Way, Shape or Form is a
fine album revealing that the Ben Miller Band have upped their game to include a
production style that equals their musical ambition and restlessness.