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Artist
Churchwood
12+ albums
blues rockAllsxsw 2015SXSW 2013sxsw 2017
about
Churchwood performs a vital and much-needed musical mission on their self-titled Saustex Records debut album: Saving the blues from the blahs and numerous other crimes and afflictions. Hailing from Austin, Texas, a city rightfully accused of being “The Boring White Blues Capital of the World,” the ingenious quintet kick the lazy butt of blues music into the second decade of the 21st Century and beyond. And they do so with Bohemian panache, gonzo élan, punky ‘tude, bluesy grit and stunning musical mastery and imagination while keeping a firm rock’n’roll Vulcan death grip on the roots of the blues. The result is a sound that’s rife with the beef and the heart — if you get the drift — plus mind-expanded smarts and relentlessly wild and wooly soul. The sonic scoop on Churchwood might best be expressed by a sampling of their song titles: The French symbolist poetics meets the rock’n’roll Burundi beat of “Rimbaud Diddley,” the mojo rising to a tempest of “Vendidi Fumar” (“I Sell Smoke”), and the soaring shredded shuffle of “Supermonisticgnositiphistic.” They change-up time signatures with wild abandon and lace it all with wittily intricate wordplay on “Pontiac Flanagan,” invite you on a funky ride through the backwoods blues with “Melungeon In The Dungeon,” shuffle up to the gallows on “Pity The Noose,” and open a “Can O’ Worms” that stomps, swirls and snarls. “Ulysses” takes a country-blues trot across the Grecian delta, “Abraxas” burrows way down deep, and then it all comes to
