Like many of the rigorous touring bands these days, there comes a time to experiment, drop the jam and revolve full circle. The North Mississippi Allstars laid the blue prints for an evolution in their sound with– Polaris – but come up with ripe and sour results.
Luther and Cody Dickinson, Chris Chew and Duwayne Burnside, have made an album that proves they are perfectly capable of reworking their sound to go beyond the hard driving blues, as heard on their first two releases, and is so reminiscent of bands with those nitty gritty southern labels.
Polaris is certainly a studio album, as most of the tunes were recorded live, but the results sound more fluff than substance. The Allstars detached themselves from their edgy presence, and end up sounding more like John Mayer.
The opening boiler, "Eyes," proves that Luther’s vocals are indeed bad-ass, when they need to be, alongside a ne at musical buildup, with piercing guitar interludes. Junior Kimrough’s "Meet Me in the City" flashes with brilliance and shows how far this band has come as a four piece. With the recent addition of Burnside, the band is more flexbile than ever, while possessing a twin attack on lead guitars that spark the live jams and the studio creations – including one soothing solo in the "One Thing" that sounds a bit Garcia…. yet a bit Allman.
After the first four numbers, the sound goes from the delta to the mall, with their top-40 ish inspired "experiments." The emotionless "Otay" is too pop to come off convincing, followed by "Kids These Daze," and "One To Grown On" are soft/poppy/flat and sound forced. For a band we’ve come to expect honest to goodness raw emotion, it’s moments like these that leave a bad taste over the hot spots. But in any case, the funky blues of "Bad Bad Pain" has lyrics that are incomprehensible, but the 70’s groove is mighty infectious, so who cares.
Polaris will be an album that the band will be talking eminently about in the
future but fans might look back at the first two releases –
Shake Hands With Shorty and
51 Phantom as their all-stars.
