Waterstreet Blues Band – Talkin About

self released

https://www.waterstreetband.com/

9 songs, 39 minutes

Canadian roots rocking Blues group Waterstreet Blues Band is a high end bar band. This quintet with dueling lead vocals, hard driving rhythm section and at times tongue in cheek songwriting chops, clearly love playing together. Rob Deyman on guitars, Silvia Dee on keys, accordion and lead vocals, Paul Sapounzi on bass and lead vocals, Jonny Sauder on drums, and Chris “Junior” Malleck on harp fashion an amorphous Blues experience. Not indebted to one tradition or another, the band can be best described as Blues Rock on their sophomore outing Talkin About.

This is a cohesive band effort with a twist. Title track opener features Sapounzi on vocals over a jumpy descending boogie with a hint of Elvis Costello’s best late 70’s tricks. When juxtaposed to other Sapounzi vehicles like the “Smokestack Lightnin’’ riffed original about a boozy lady “Vodka Drinkin Woman” or the slow Blues of “Mean Vicious Woman,” one view of Waterstreet is a band with a classic male centric woman-did-me-wrong aesthetic. But it is the detached cool of Silvia Dee’s vocal delivery on the Samantha Fish cover “Miles to Go,” the slinky original “Riverside Child,” the Slim Harpo styled road song “Don’t Stop” or the gypsy rave up of Tom Wait’s “Temptation,” that gives this record depth. The addition of Dee’s accordion on a number of tunes also skews away from a bar brawl and 2 steps over to a funky swamp boil.

Waterstreet Blues Band is a solid band with a solid sound. All the players are adept and talented. Guitars slide and bend, the bass and drums thump and thrum. The 2 punch vocals are strong. It would be cool to hear a duet or 2 from these strong singers, but the alternating voices add a nice counterpoint when the album is considered as a whole. The group has a chemistry that jumps out of the speakers. This is fun music that is obviously fun to hear live.