After 70 years of rock ‘n’ roll, you’d think every chord progression and riff had been played, every note exhausted. But listening to the twelve original tunes on Diary of the Doom proves that assumption wrong. Hot on the heels of his Psyche-O-Billy and 14 Hits That Don’t Quit LPs, Montreal’s legendary one-man band Bloodshot Bill returns with a fresh batch of catchy rockabilly songs. The twangy near-instrumentals are raw and primitive, but above all entrancing and memorable, not least because each tune has a unique feature, such as Tres Tacos‘ festive shouts, uplifting whistling in Doomin and the cinematic surf sound of Breakaway. It all is a lot more cheerful than the album title suggests.
Diary of the Doom is out now digitally and on gold nugget colored vinyl through Hi-Tide Recordings.