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MP3 Medicine Hat - Blood and Bone
11 MP3 Songs in this album (42:50) !
Related styles: ROCK: Americana, ROCK: Roots Rock
People who are interested in The Rolling Stones The Black Crowes The Band should consider this download.
Details:
Back in the early 1970’s, after the novelty of mind-altering chemicals had worn off for members of the counter-culture, but shortly before the excesses of the time blew up in their collective face, rock ‘n’ roll was gritty, a bit nasty, and real (think The Stones, Humble Pie, The Faces, etc.). While hardly guilty of any of the lecherous off-stage antics of their heroes, Chicago’s Medicine Hat have succeeded in releasing an album that surely would have been right at home amongst that era’s popular rock ‘n’ roll offerings, while still making sure of their appeal to a more modern audience.
Combining occasionally souful/rootsy-rock and Americana, "Blood and Bone", the band’s fourth album in as many years, neatly encapsulates Medicine Hat’s two worlds by simply dividing the album into two distinct halves—part one offers up a full slab of rocking electric material, while part two features all folk and alt-country acoustic pieces. While “The Hat” has always enjoyed bouncing back and forth between southern-tinged rock and true acoustic roots music, "Blood and Bone" is surely the band’s most focused and powerful record to date. Album opener “Take the Bait” takes off like something out of The Stones’ Exile on Main Street, complete with horns (a first for Medicine Hat) and choppy Richards-like guitar chords. “South 55” channels a more soulful jam-rock sound not too far removed from the Black Crowes. And never averse to the occasional social statement, the band’s “Emmett Till” spits venom concerning the true-life racially motivated murder of the title character back before civil rights meant anything in the Deep South. On what would be “side two” if the record had been released on vinyl, the stripped-down half of the album is where the band especially shines. They meld delta blues with a Middle-Eastern vibe a la Zeppelin on “Twelve Lights”, true-to-life country folk in “Diary of a Northern Soldier” (a Civil War influenced tune that somehow feels like a rebuttal to The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”), and southern/country-revival in the title track, album closer “Blood and Bone”.
While not as didactic as their last album (State of the Union), it wouldn’t be a Medicine Hat record without some sort of social commentaries—while the previously noted “Emmett Till” is the most obvious example, “Twelve Lights” concedes greed and self-obsession are at the heart of human nature, and “Blood and Bone” questions the empty spiritual proclamations of the masses (“…we all can’t meet the Mahatma, and we can’t get Jesus on the phone…”). But the band balances these sobering topics with songs like the tongue-in-cheek “Mudhen”, which seems to sarcastically celebrate certain “sins of the flesh” while knocking out an infectious groove at the same time.
Two key personnel changes (new guitarist Todd Hackl, and keyboardist Robert Panknin) have helped Medicine Hat fully realize the potential they’ve shown since their inception in 2004, and with Blood and Bone, the band has most assuredly perfected their own formula: combining truly sincere song-writing with solid musicianship seems to give them the greatest satisfaction, and this approach on Blood and Bone will no doubt continue to also satisfy the band’s loyal (and growing) fan base in Chicago and throughout the Midwest.
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