Ana Popovic

This is a Hot full on Rocking Blues Album! Harmonica & Guitar driven with a fantastic rhythm section that never disappoints. This is CD number four for Thirsty Perch and their best effort to date. Professional musicians with a propietary sound! The Thirsty Perch Blues Band churns out the blues in its own, inimitable way. As a result, the award-winning Grand Rapids fivesome has shared stages with the likes of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Ana Popovic and Joanne Shaw Taylor, sparked a regional buzz with four albums released since 2009, and even earned attention overseas. “We’re really hard to pigeonhole. We don’t want to be like anybody else,” insists chief songwriter, guitarist and singer Chris Collins, who formed Thirsty Perch Blues Band in 2008 with longtime musical collaborator and harmonica whiz Chuck Luscombe.

New York’s punk/blues girl band, follow up their 2016 covers debut No B! with a collection of mostly original material, but the noise levels remain intact. Opening with the lip-curling vocals of Dana “Danger” Athens on the rocking “How Ya Doin’?”, name-checking just about every American city, through to the Lawler – Thornton cover “Black Rat”, the pace never lets up. Having said that, “How Bright The Moon” is a classy ballad, Athens accompanying herself on piano, interspersed with reverent guitar work from Tracy Hightop/Tina “T-Bone” Gorin. The pace hots up again with the rhythm section of drummer Melissa “Cool Whip” and bassist Hail Mary Zadroga doing a sterling job on the Don Robey classic “Turn On Your Love Light”. If classic slow blues is your thing, closer “The Breeze” is for you, cracker! With the plethora of female artists on the blues/rock scene at the moment, gaining momentum must be difficult. But there is enough class on this album for this relatively new band to pull it off. Oh, lastly, keep those names!