BLUES PILLS – Birthday (2024) *HQ*
It’s good to occasionally step back and thank the stars for the bands that do still care about heritage, care about doing it live and still salute the starting points that brought us here. Like Rival Sons and Northern Ireland’s The Answer, Swedes BLUES PILLS have always fed off an education of rock, blues & soul, and as they’ve developed their sound over the years, this fourth album “Birthday” adds a rock&pop sheen to their vintage sound.
Vocalist Elin Larsson, a remarkable presence and voice onstage, was in the latter stages of pregnancy while completing the aptly christened ”Birthday”, and there’s something of that strength, love and maturity in all 11 of these new songs.
While the band still take Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin’s high voltage witchcraft as their bricks and mortar, they sprinkle it with additional sass and soul in a way that feels more finished, more accomplished than ever before.
It’s an album that drifts hard into Seventies rock pastiche, and therefore cannot help but invite comparisons. Very loosely speaking, imagine the early work of LA femme-rock ground breakers Heart crossed with the ballsier output of more contemporary blues-rock outfits.
”Birthday” bursts with unfettered vitality, spontaneity, innovative ideas, burning intensity, locked in classic rock grooves and contemporary crafted pop-rock. It strikes the perfect balance between a ‘live in the studio’ vibe while incorporating lilting melodies, big dynamics and is easily their best songs.
It’s no coincidence that their new producer is the Swedish hit maker Freddy Alexander, who has evidently tapped into the band’s energy levels, tightened the arrangements, polished the hooks and given the album a contemporary mix.
It’s very much a song driven album, full of Larsson’s animated vocals, plenty of sumptuous melodies and is relentlessly driven by the locked-in rhythm section of bassist André Kvarnström and drummer Kristoffer Schander. This leaves guitarist Zack Anderson to serve the songs with subtle tone colours and significant parts, rather than dominating proceedings with overbearing solos.
The net result is a concise, high energy album full of exhilarating moments which takes in everything from reflective to humorous songs and even the sharply contrasting anger of the opening title track. A potent mix of pounding drums, rumbling bass and zippy vocal acts like an adrenalin rush, leading to the kind of stop-time catchy sing-along hook, which will surely be heard on plenty of beaches around Europe this summer.
The band’s free-flowing but obviously blues-based rock isn’t as predictable as before, or very much like any of their peers. ‘Don’t You Love It’ jogs in on throbbing bass, building to another splendidly dance-worthy hook. ‘Piggyback Ride’ does the same thing even more directly, while ‘Like A Drug’ is hushed and ominous, eliciting another heartfelt performance from Elin.
It’s onstage that Blues Pills work best – the fact that this is their first album in four years might tell you that – but when they do deliver, it’s with subtle shades of change, stuff that not only keeps their light burning, but keeps you avidly gaping at their particular voodoo. Effortlessly and instinctively classic, long may it continue.
Highly Recommended
01 – Birthday
02 – Don’t You Love It
03 – Bad Choices
04 – Top of the Sky
05 – Like a Drug
06 – Piggyback Ride
07 – Holding Me Back
08 – Somebody Better
09 – Shadows
10 – I Don’t Wanna Get Back On That Horse Again
11 – What Has This Life Done to You
Elin Larsson – vocals
Zack Anderson – guitar
André Kvarnström – drums
Kristoffer Schander – bass
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