rating:

My limited knowledge to blues music confines on teasingly climactic guitars set on twelve-bar structures and virtuoso stints, unexplainable music force that makes you bop and scratch the invisible strings on your tummy, and anything with fiery passion with regards to guitar playing.. Although I admire the blistering solos, the grinding vocals, and the passionate slow burn-sensations the music makes – it's not the music I'd play the most during chilling nights and mercy hours. In simpler term, not my soundtrack material.

However, my least liking for blues music didn't deter me for grabbing a copy of what could be the first local blues compilation ever, BLUESKRIEG Original Filipino Blues Music. I've been listening to it for a week now, and instantly found new admiration for all its striking pinoy sensibilities, caffeine spell-charms and well-verse synthesis of various music styles influenced primarily by blues music. Featuring obscure blues artists like Plug, Snakecharmer, Firebottle, Dahon and Kulukati – BLUESKRIEG Original Filipino Blues Music consists of 15 tracks, each with compelling moments that recall early blues guitar heroes Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Carlos Santana and B.B King; established pop acts John Mayer, Jack Jackson and Eric Clapton; classic rock icons The Rolling stones and Fleetwood Mac; even our very own Juan Dela Cruz band.

While there's enough diversity and subtlety to the entire mood of the record, there are times when you feel exhausted with its repetitive, bluesy quality and rasping groove that borders from mild, rock-ish and funky. I'm not complaining, and there's no way around the corner to justify the bore feeling since it's a compilation album of entirely blues music soaked in guitar solos, arousing rhythms and soulful interpretation of bobbing notes which leaps and soars through grinding shuffles. The dreary setbacks are inevitabilities in every compilation albums, but the main draw here are the favorites or the most likely sufferers of the repeat button mode. With Plug band explosively commencing the album compilation with the "Tumbling down the devil's game," a smoking song that has deep baritone voice smoothing over jazz standard-statements and catchy but sensuous blues harmonics, it sets the skyline for expectation and thus the songs that followed suffer from too much expectation despite being acceptably good tunes.

 

But there are enough fine moments to keep you glued. Snakecharmer's yodeling cowboy-funk "My Slow Draggin' Week" depicts littered cigar butts, sunny days and weekend bum-around. Just enough funky music crooned through soulful lament and slackening harmonica. Another Snakecharmer's song, "Suklob" sounds like a lift from 80's protest folk ballads, only cheesier and akin to an aching love ode that makes you reminisce that special someone on that hot, scorching roadtrip to nowhere. Its delicate piano tunes are nicely laid all through out the song, bringing the element of fogging gentleness to the coarse vocal texture. While Firebottle's "Di na lang sana" sounds like a B-side to "Suklob," its subtle melody is still one of the compilation album's most deluxe suit. Dahon and Kulukati showcases the more raw streamline of blues through hard rock and straight rock n roll numbers "Monster within me" and closer track, "Taga sa bato."

To sum it up, BLUESKRIEG Original Filipino Blues Music is a tedious but rewarding listen. It gives us a little background of pinoy blues and its seamless possibility to take toll in the music industry in the near future. Blues might have a hard time penetrating the scene, but the passion and virtuosic playing will forever keep the blues aficionados to their toes. it's not all about the money, as they put in cliché.