Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Marie Martens & The Messarounds: “Travelled” (2019) CD Review

Travelled, the debut full-length release from Marie Martens & The Messarounds, contains a good mix of original material and covers. This band offers some wonderful blues rock, music that comes from a heart nestled deep in the blues and also truly rocks. This is music that will shake your blues right out of your body if you let it. The band is made up of Marie Martens on vocals, guitar and keys; Ronnie “Two Times” Cacioppo on vocals and percussion; Jimmy B Natural on bass; and Tom Selear on drums.

The album opens with “Change My Ways,” a steady and strong bluesy number, with a bit of a swamp feel to the guitar. This is an original track, written by Marie Martens. Usually in a blues song, if there is some cheating going on, it’s by the other person, but here Marie sings “I went out last night drinking/Think I lied and cheated too.” Then the song suddenly takes off for a short blast of energy before returning to that main groove, like a brief but failed attempt to effect some change, which is really interesting. This track is a damn fine start to the disc. The band follows that with a fun and enjoyable cover of Otis Rush’s “Keep On Loving Me, Baby,” here titled “Keep On Loving Me.” Marie Martens delivers a delicious blues vocal performance, and plays keyboard on this track. And the music has a lot of rock and roll in its soul. I particularly love the guitar on this one; I can lose myself in that lead like halfway through the track, while the rhythm keeps my body moving. The chimes at the end feel a bit out of place, but no matter.

“Mama Won’t Allow Me” begins with electric guitar which seems to promise something special. You just know from that little tease that this thing is going to cook.  And sure enough, the song soon kicks in like some of the best early work from ZZ Top, with that kind of raw, dirty energy. This is an original number, written by Marie Martens. That’s followed by a cover of “Bad Boy,” with Ronnie Cacioppo taking lead vocal duties. This track features another delicious groove on bass, and more wonderful work on guitar, but for me, the drums are the focus here, and are what keep me going. The band jams on this one. We then get “Movin’ On,” an original blues song. “They say it’s forever/Not for you and me/Our love ain’t what it used to be/I gotta move on, move on/It’s time for me to move on down the road.”  I love the heavy feel of this one. It’s one of the disc’s highlights for me. Then “Kokomo Blues” starts off almost softly, a nice little tease, and suddenly kicks in, that great rhythm taking over. This feels like the band you always want to be playing when you walk into a bar.

The disc’s final original number, “Later Baby,” is a groovy number, another highlight. “But maybe his leaving was a blessing in disguise/Truth of the matter is he was telling a lot of lies/My baby left me, and now he’s gone/He said, ‘Later baby, bye-bye, so long.’” Marie Martens plays keys on this one. The fun continues with the band’s cover of “Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” which moves along at a great pace and should put a smile on your face. It features more delicious guitar work, particularly that lead section. And check out that bass line. Marie Martens & The Messarounds then take us further into the blues with their rendition of “Walkin’ And Cryin’,” which has a smooth, wonderful, classic sound. Ah yes, blues about heartbreak, and Marie Martens delivers it so well, though we do lose the rhyme because of the lyric change in the lines “There’s one thing that I just can’t stand/That is seeing you out with somebody else.” Brian Mitchel plays piano on this track. That’s followed by a cover of “Room Full Of Mirrors,” this rendition having something of a Bo Diddley rhythm. The album concludes with a mean, cool rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “Ventilator Blues,” a song that originally appeared on Exile On Main St. This version features a good fuzzy guitar sound and powerful vocals.

CD Track List
  1. Change My Ways
  2. Keep On Loving Me
  3. Mama Won’t Allow Me
  4. Bad Boy
  5. Movin’ On
  6. Kokomo Blues
  7. Parchman Farm
  8. Later Baby
  9. Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean
  10. Walkin’ And Cryin’
  11. Room Full Of Mirrors
  12. Give Me Back My Wig
  13. Ventilator Blues 
Travelled was released on April 29, 2019.

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