A walloping great gumbo of southern styles and influences make this a recipe to be reckoned with.

Release Date: 6th September 2024

Label: New West

Format: CD / vinyl / digital

I don’t know about you, but sometimes the plethora of similar sounding US band names can get confusing, I freely muddling my Del Lords with my Del Fuegos, my Delines with my Delfonics. So this is Deslondes, or is it The Deslondes, a band from New Orleans, Deslondes Street, in fact, where they met, and a largely untapped taste this side of the pond. But they have been around nigh on a decade, and, with their hometown a melting pot of genres and influences, it is unsurprising they offer a whiff of most. Actually only album four, or five, if you include and earlier incarnation as Sam Doores, Riley Downing & The Tumbleweeds, it is their mix of styles that lured me in, hopefully doing the same for you.

Almost the first sound, over sparsely strummed guitar and a distant organ chord, it is the gruff baritone of Riley Downing that first hits, a distant cousin, in sound, of Crash Test Dummies’ Brad Roberts, a pleasingly lugubrious instrument. Piano adds some bass notes, an electric guitar beginning to flicker. As the rest of the band holler into life for the chorus, it becomes almost hymnal, a fiddle sawing for extra gravitas. Hold On Liza it’s called, and my sweet spot is held. The piano waltzes over the backbeat and it is all a low key celebration, a song of hope and encouragement. Take Me Back is more of a 50s shuffle of harmony vocals, slap bass and trebly guitar. This time it is Sam Doores taking the main microphone, whose more western twang becomes apparent, once you peel past the group harmonies.

To exemplify that, Lies I’ve Told is then a swaying country weepie, with pedal steel. And Dan Cutler now has the right sort of plangent keen for this style of song. A mandolin adds some wobbly counterpoint, with a harmonica blowing smoke over the horizon. The lead guitar is still set high on treble, a brittle cascade of notes. It is John James Tourville on steel, and on fiddle, where it appears, with Dan Cutler on basses, electric and otherwise, and Howe Pearson on percussion duties, taking over from previous longtime drummer, Cameron Snyder. Together they make a formidably relaxed rhythm section, allowing Sam Doores and the aforementioned Downing to add various guitars.

Their N’Awlins heritage sneaks into the open for I’ll Do It, a syncopated acoustic stagger, with handclaps driving the beat, the feel here very Little Feat-y, with chops of guitar and organ adding emphasis. The shared vocals remind of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, adding to the personal boxes they are ticking for me, but the lead vocal here is from the new sticksman. By and large, it is the songwriter who sings each song, showing, so far, at least four of them have form . The build gets progressively fonky, with an o, and I like.

Grand Junction returns to the wailing harmonica and steel of Lies I’ve Told, a conventional 4:4 panhandle that drops place names and car names. And no, I don’t know who’s playing the harp, but I want to. Although Downing sings, this is actually a Tourville write, making five out of five. Ringing further change, if still broadly within a country template, Find The Ground is a slow, lonesome ballad, with a rippling organ, behind a languid strum of guitars and the still singing steel. A powerful simmer of a song, it could fit convincingly on any of the first trio of records by (the) Eagles, back when they, tin helmet, were still an interesting proposition.

Pour Another Round is based all about the piano, played in that inimitable Crescent City style of their hometown , with a brass band arrangement to elevate further that ambience. As the song careers down the street, a shaky military beat adds to the sense of a marching band. I can’t but help think of Garth Hudson and his brass arrangements in The Band here. However, proving they aren’t flawless, Old Plank Road is then a bit too easy and obvious, a bit of flimsy roustabout. Given it also had the effect of worming Ring Of Fire into my ear, many might feel that a good thing. As counterbalance, Who Really Loses, next up, inserts some swampy steam into the mix, drawn out massed vocals a slow drawl dredged up from Louisiana, with a suitably sleazy organ choogle.

Go Out Tonight is right back in the French Quarter, with the rolling r’n’b piano of Blueberry Hill. The expectation of some zydeco accordion is promised, but never delivered, that anticipation enhancing the song’s reception. Mercury has a proto pop-psychedelia feel. very much like when US bands tried to ape the English Invasion of, gulp, sixty years ago. Gloriously retro, the palpable touch of Doug Sahm is all over this one. And, mindful we haven’t yet had a mournful country blues, Line To Go is finally there to tap that barrel. Finally, I should say, from the sense of their own collective compositions, as it is with a cover they actually close, J.J. Cale’s Drifter’s Wife. Irrespective of having had me, hitherto, forget the integral part that man has also had also in their stew of sounds, their version strips away Cale’s acoustic Okie shuffle, imbuing it instead with the down home, back porch resilience of a life mainly spent on the road. It rounds out and rounds up the album perfectly.

If there were justice, these guys would be as well known as the names I have freely dropped. Maybe they will be yet. Until then, try a live performance of Hold On Liza. (And just who does the Howe, the singing drummer, remind you of here, further ramping up comparisons with that Band? A clue is in the capital letter.)

The Deslondes online: Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram

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