#576 > Too Slim and the Taildraggers - Brace Yourself (PhillyCheezeBlues.Blogspot.com)

 

2022 – Vizztone Records

By Phillip Smith; Sep. 17, 2022

Original source:  phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com

 

I’ve only seen Too Slim and the Taildraggers perform one time.  That was August of 2018 at Harley Corin’s in Bettendorf, Iowa.  The memory of that show still hangs on tight.  The band has a take-no-prisoners approach as it slams open the gate for a fantastic rocking show.   Brace Yourself, the latest album from Too Slim, captures that potent live energy from a performance at Ohme Gardens in Wenatchee, Washington.  With Tim “Too Slim” Langford front-and-center on lead vocals and guitar, The Taildraggers are bassist Zach Kasik, and drummer Jeff “Shakey” Fowlkes.

They get the show started with the hard-driving rocker Mississippi Moon from their 2003 album Tales of Sin and Redemption.  The pulsing rhythm from Fowlkes and Kasik clear the way for Too Slim’s ferocious guitar, and slightly-gravelly vocals.  This homage to Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues” lands a familiar punch like that from one of my favorite bands The Cult.  From the 2009 album Free Your Mind, the power-trios breaks out the fabulously-sinister and infectious “Devil in a Double Wide”.  Too Slims guitar licks are downright amazing as he absolutely rips it up.  From that same, album, they also unpack title-track “Free Your Mind”.  This Jimi Hendrix – meets – Black Oak Arkansas southern-rocker is slow-steeped in moonshine, and topped with a jaw dropping performance.  Too Slim releases his inner Neil Young on “Givers and Takers” from The Fortune Teller album, and it sounds magnificent.  I’m quite drawn to the three-fer of songs from the Blood Moon album as well.  “The Body”, a beautifully-dark song of death and the hereafter leads the pack.  Next up is title-track “Blood Moon” which Too Slim loads up with a tractor trailer full of scorching blues.  And lastly, there is “Twisted Rails” which features more Hendrix-fueled, hard-driving, sixties-era, psychedelic blues-rock.  It’s a sheer delight.

 Too Slim and the Taildraggers fill this twelve-track live recording with a dozen of his best originals, and nail every performance to the wall.  Brace Yourself is a damn good, must-hear album. 

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For more information about Too Slim and the Taildraggers, visit this website:

https://www.tooslim.net/

 

 

Here’s some links for past PhillyCheeze reviews of other Too Slim and the Taildraggers albums:

 

Remedy

https://phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com/2020/06/448-too-slim-and-taildraggers-remedy.html

 

High Desert Heat

https://phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com/2018/05/334-too-slim-and-taildraggers-high.html

 

Blood Moon

https://phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com/2017/02/too-slim-and-taildraggers-blood-moon.html