Lee Harvey Osmond

Colours to the mast time – I am a sucker for dense, mesmeric and dark Blues; this is one of the best around.

Lee Harvey Osmond describes his music as 'Acid-Folk’ and that is as good as any but this takes in elements of folk, Bayou boogie and North Mississippi Trance-Blues and does them all justice. There is an acid tinge to the whole thing as well as a dark overtone to the music and the combination of breathed vocals and gently played instruments makes you listen closely and absorb all the deranged and romantic sounds they throw at you.

Lee Harvey Osmond isn’t a single human but a collective of seven or eight permanent members and about a dozen floating 'affiliates’ that include people like Colin Linden and Jesse O’Brien and because of their wide range of talents and styles they create music that is as varied as it is intense but the quality never seems to drop and whether they are playing a trance-Blues like 'Cuckoo’s Nest’ or a country love-ballad like 'I’m Going To Stay That Way’ they make great music.

Tom Wilson’s vocals are magnificent – dark and softly whispered – and he learned his craft with Junkhouse and then Blackie & The Rodeo Kings but the rest of the crew is as important to the overall success of the project and if you dip into the album at any point you can find a terrific performance be it Aaron Goldstein’s pedal steel or Michael Timmins guitar work or Ray Farrugia & Josh Finlayson’s rhythm section, Margot Timmin’s vocals or Brent Titcomb’s harmonica it is all crucial and brilliantly played. The

If you need a number to hang your hat on as an example of what this band is about search out 'Lucifer’s Blues’. Everything they do best is incorporated into a talking Blues that laments the young man meeting the devil and trying to talk his way out of it all – musically it is soft, jazzy and soulful with a great conga line but there is a deranged and wicked side to the music that impinges on your very soul and Darcy Hepner’s reeds telling the tale.

The Band are generally accepted to be the most accomplished band that N. America ever produced – Canadian to the core – and their success made a lot of people look to Canada in a more admiring light; Lee Harvey Osmond are carriers of that same baton and with this album it is tightly in their grasp.