The long awaited new CD from Winnipeg blues rockers the Perpetrators is finally here. It is exactly what you'd expect — guitarist/ vocalist Jay Nowicki playing Hound Dog Taylor style blues rock with a rotating cast of players including original Perpetrators Ken McMahon and Ryan Menard on drums and bass on about half of the tracks, current touring bassist John Scoles on four tracks and Ryan Voth and David Landreth on drums and bass respectively for a couple more tracks.
Special guest Romi Mayes adds backup vocals on a couple of other tracks. But no matter the line up it still sounds like the Perpetrators, which is a good thing.
Nowicki has a very distinctive guitar sound and a voice which doesn’t sound like anybody else.
The CD starts with the countryish ‘Sweetgrass’ which sounds a lot like JOSCO, their ode to Times Changed owned John Scoles and they take off from there.
The catchy ‘Spend More Money’ stands out and puts you in the mood to groove.
They also revisit a few of the songs from Nowicki and McMahon’s side project K-Mac and Howik’s Punk Blues Explosion by adding a strong bottom end to ‘Smokes N’ Chicken,’ which is the sequel to the popular Perps’ song ‘Six Pack’ about being mugged for beer, ‘ but this time is about being mugged for smokes tracks and chicken. It adds a little humour as the underaged muggers can’t drive a stick shift. ‘Shake It’ and ‘Bad Man’ also get more polished on the new Perpetrators’ CD.
‘Smokes N’ Chicken’ has been trimmed down to an almost six minute blues jam featuring some sinister slide guitar. I think the version on K-MAc and Howik’s Punk blues Explosion lasted a about eight minutes.
The catchy ‘Trying To Keep My Cool,’ is another longer song which has an unstoppable, toe tapping groove and tasteful yet gritty guitar solo and chorus which will have you singing along.
They slow things down on a couple of groovy tracks including ‘You’ve Got to to Tell Me’ and ‘I Must Be Crazy.’
‘Who’s It Gonna Be is another countryish song that sounds similar to Sweetgrass.’
‘Shake It’ benefits from Menard’s throbbing bass as does ‘Bad Man.’ .
They end on a high note with the menacing ‘Take You On.’
Band: The Perpetrators
Genre: blues
