Ash Grunwald - Trouble's Door

Blues Dub

Australian Ash Grunwald is new to this older listener, and it is apt that he brings a new edge to older blues, adding dub rhythms and samplings as with opening track The Demon in Me. Slide and other fine guitar work provides a conventional base, as does Grunwald’s full vocal, and it is the looped background blues-moan with accompanying harmonies that add the contemporary nuance. Second Shake That Thing has a Jon Spencer/Jack White distortion to its fuzzed stomp, but again the bluesy vocal roots it to tradition. Third Longtime is an acoustic number and exudes blues authenticity, the pulsating rhythm working a modern mojo. Fourth Trouble’s Door returns us to a looped dub/echoing rhythm and this provides a haunting atmosphere to the sudden bursts of energy in the song’s core tune. Sixth Sail revisits distortion for effect on both vocal and synth, with programmed handclaps and distant female vocals that push forward before drifting back. Seventh Nervous pares it down to slow sassy beats that foreground the vocal, whilst eighth Ramblin’ Man uses a simple strummed banjo to accentuate Grunwald’s voice as he goes blues-operatic. The album’s twelve Delta-infused tracks present a wonderful mix of convention with contemporary production, but it is that rooting in tradition and Grunwald’s vocal feel for this which dominate and make this album such a pleasure to stomp to.