David M’Ore – Holy Sinners & Sinful Saints
Self-Release – 2025
13 tracks; 79 minutes
David M’Ore is Argentinian but has been based in California since the 1990’s. He plays regularly in San Francisco and the owner of the famous Saloon Bar in North Beach, Myron Mu, gets a thank you credit in the sleeve notes. This is David’s third album release and his first for ten years. His initial influences were Johnny Winter, Hendrix and Deep Purple and his own music is firmly at the rock end of the blues spectrum. In a power trio format, David handles guitar and vocals, with Marshall St Clair on bass and Wade Olson on drums. All the material is credited to David though two are versions of songs made famous by BB King and Muddy Waters, “intended only to be a way to pay respect to those who influenced us”.
As can be seen from the album timings, the purchaser will get a lot of bang for their buck. Only one tune is less than four minutes long and five exceed six. There is therefore plenty for guitar heads to get excited about here! The drums introduce “Me And My Baby” before David’s gravel tones come in, certainly a distinctive voice. “Rock Me” may seek to pay respect to Mr King, but the great man would struggle to recognize the song in this jagged, super-heavy version. The title track is one of those longer tracks, taken at a slower pace whilst the extended “Bleeding Heart” is an instrumental with lots of shimmering guitar, a slower tune which starts well before the second half features lots of heavy use of the wah pedal. In between those two tracks is “Let Me Take You Home” which opens with some delicate guitar over waves of cymbals before moving into gear as a mid-paced rocker.
Most of the album follows a similar pattern, David altering the pace between out and out rockers and slower tunes. There is some good playing on “Let’s Get Together”, uncredited keys on the lengthy ballad “Armenia” and on “Still In Love With You” David hits a Santana ballad style to good effect in the intro. The second ‘tribute’ cover is “Hoochie Man”, again a long way from the original. However, the extent to which listeners will enjoy the album will depend on how much they dig big guitars and David’s gritty, strangled vocal style.
