BLACK JOE LEWIS AND THE HONEYBEARS - SCANDALOUS (2LP)

Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears Scandalous on 2LP Set from Lost Highway

Garage-Soul Rock n' Roll Band's White-Hot 2011 LP Produced by Spoon's Jim Eno

Youthful, Assertive, Raw, Gritty: Funky, Bluesy Music Simultaneosuly Aims at Feet Pelvis, and Head

All killer, no filler, the fittingly titled and take-no-prisoners Scandalous—once again produced by Jim Eno, moonlighting from his main gig as Spoon’s drummer—is a churning slab of rock & roll, blues and funk, laced with a double shot of 100-proof punkitude. Indeed, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears are now as tight as a gnat’s ass due to nearly two years of barnstorming without a break.

Like his forebears, Lewis writes from direct, often bitter experience with unflinching veracity. Scandalous is littered with the debris of age-old issues: hard times and one-night stands, lying and cheating, redemption and revenge. Gritty, raunchy and real, his music is not for the squeamish, but experiencing it fully is genuinely cathartic.

The album opens with the funky fantasia “Livin’ in the Jungle,” as Lewis wails with tonsil-shredding abandon over a rhythm section erupting like a tropical storm and horns honking like hyenas in heat. On the following “I’m Gonna Leave You,” the band sends a jolt of electricity through a Mississippi hill country blues template. From there, it’s all hands on deck, as one sonic assault after another rips into the eardrums and the pelvis all at once. The instant-classic highway boogie “Mustang Ranch” recounts, in sordid detail, an overnight drive between Salt Lake City and San Francisco, Lewis spinning out the narrative as a revved-up talking blues.

And the leader seems to be channeling Robert Johnson on “Messin’,” which turns on his spooky, low-down vocal and acoustic guitar. But the album’s biggest surprise is “You Been Lyin’,” a torrid, politically themed workout in the tradition of Parliament-Funkadelic and late-60s Temptations. Featured on this track are the group vocals of the Relatives, a Dallas gospel funk band that made some criminally underexposed records three decades ago. Here and elsewhere, you can also pick up the influence of the Stooges, another of Lewis’ touchstones, in the confrontational physicality of the performances.

“We feel like what we’re doing is different from the soul bands with horn sections that are out there right now,” says guitarist Zach Ernst. “We always joke that we would do that kind of music, but we’re not good enough: our guitars are too loud, we’re too primitive on our instruments, and Joe is more of a shouter and a talking-blues guy than a smooth soul singer. So we’re carving out our own thing because it’s the only way that we can do it. We can’t play it any cleaner or smoother—and we don’t want to, either.”

Black Joe Lewis And The Honeybears Scandalous Track Listing:

1.  Livin' In The Jungle
2.  I'm Gonna Leave You
3.  Booty City
4.  Black Snake
5.  Scandalous
6.  Messin'
7.  Mustang Ranch
8.  You Been Lyin'
9.  Ballad of Jimmy Tanks
10. Since I Met You Baby
11. Jesus Take My Hand