If you have been a regular peruser of Facebook's various stoner, doom and psych orientated pages then you will no doubt be familiar with the name Black Road and that bands lithe vocalist Suzi Uzi, Uzi and the band, hailing from Chicago.Illinois, have long been teasing us with snippets of their live shows, photo's and personal videos but apart from a few well received singles and an enjoyable but a little rough around the edges live EP we, the general public, have had nothing tangible to really get our teeth into. That was until now and the release of their debut studio EP "Black Road".
Black Road, Suzi Uzi (vox/lyrics/piano), Tim M. (guitar), Casey Papp (bass) and Robert Gonzales (drums), have been regulars on the stoner/doom club circuits since their 2015 inception, slowly honing their skills and sound, writing and arranging songs (as well as having to blood new members) waiting patiently until that time when the planets aligned and they had something that not only met their own high standards but had something they felt confident and comfortable to share with others, "Black Road" is the result of all that hard work and sacrifice and is stunning EP from start to finish. From the swirling occult/doom refrains of "From Hell", with its slightly cryptic environmental message, through "Bloody Mary" with its chugging fuzz drenched groove, bluesy guitar fills/solo's and psychedelic mid-section, and "Red", with its vaguely 80's pop rock intro leading into an atmospheric and doomic blues, to the closer "Black Rose", an epic tome that takes in elements of folk and prog as it wends and weaves its way to its majestic finale, there is not a vocal inflection, bass line, guitar note or drum beat wasted, everything coming together in a beautiful and totally satisfying whole. The band even throw in a couple of instrumental(ish) numbers in the shape of "Morte" and "Morte (coda)" the former a duet between Uzi on piano and Tim M. on guitar that could easily grace the soundtrack of a 60's spy movie, the latter a slightly more electric version with Papp and Gonzales adding their weight to proceedings as well as a contribution from the legendary guitarist and studio maestro Tony Reed (Mos Generator) on mellatron.
In a scene where female vocalists are fast becoming the norm it is getting increasingly hard for bands with similar line ups to stand out from the crowd but Black Road manage to do this not just by the fact they have a striking looking lead singer with strong, powerful sultry tones at their helm but also because these guys have the chops to back up such a voice and the songs to compliment those tones and when you put that all together in one place you end up with something quite special.
Check 'em out ....
© 2017 Frazer Jones
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