[Harp-L] Review: The Rhythm Junks - Virus B23

["Planet Harmonica" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have juste posted a review of the Rhythm Junks' Virus B23 on my weblog over at http://harmonica.typepad.com/. Here are the first few paragraphs : 

"I can feel a somewhat rant-ish post coming up one of these days on the lack of creativeness in the musical field when it comes to harmonica playing. Now is not the time however, but it's not often that I get the opportunity to review a record that is trying to push the envelope  and actually achieves it too. There may also be another rant about harmonica albums as opposed to simply music, because the Rhythm Junks' album features much harmonica, but can in no way be described as a harmonica album. I suspect there's a link between the two rants, as well, but I need to furbish my arguments before I start talking seriously about it or the whole harmonica world will grill me with flamethrowers the second I hit 'post'.  So expect that for another day. 
In the meantime, back to Virus B23. Steven deBruyn is a diatonic and chromatic player from Belgium. He used to be part of one of the most famous blues-rock bands there, El Fish. They released two very exciting and fresh blues oriented albums in the mid 90s, then released a very interesting rock album that had little to do with blues except for some samples of Sonny Boy Williamson 2 calling Leonard Chess a motherf****r. Then the singer/gutarist left, was replaced, they released a somewhat weird mostly instrumental album and fell off the face of the earth.  Steven, thankfully, was one step ahead and already thinking about his next project. It was originally to be called Virus B23, but that's now the title of the album and the band is called the Rhythm Junks."

Ben FELTEN
http://harmonica.typepad.com