Remember the iconic ad for Maxwell audio cassettes back at the turn of the 1980s? Yeah, that’s the one: a fellow is sitting low in a chair, facing a stereo speaker out from which blasts sound so forceful as to blow back his hair, necktie, lampshade and capsized Martini glass.
Similar blowback effect with Revelation.
The sonic deluge that hits comes doubly reinforced. First and foremost is frontman Al “Piper” Green, whose bazooka voice is ginormous. Scary big. The Howlin’ Wolf of our times. And as that monstrous growl tears and shreds through, the equally oversized, hard-pressing attack of the Hard Times mops the floor with what’s left. Bonded in a mission of maximum impact, Piper & the Hard Times muster a bluster that propelled them to the front of the line at the Blues Foundation’s 2024 International Blues Challenge (IBC), scoring the coveted title of Best Band.
And with that high-profile win, no longer does Nashville’s own spectacle remain a local secret (for 20some years): The tiger is out of the bag, roaring for all to hear. All the more so now that, right after the IBC victory in January, the band ducked into a recording studio by February to bottle their energy into a portable power plant for anyone’s personal use: an hour’s worth of BOOM! Many partook, rocketing Revelation to No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Chart upon its debut in August.
In keeping with that expedited trend, Revelation wastes zero time going big and bold. Piper starts devouring the all-original setlist with “Trouble Man,” the opener. Running roughshod over a muscle-bound New Orleans roll, he pleads his case with all of his tattered throat. Thirty seconds in—and you’re already bulldozed. How do you follow that? With “The Hard Times.” Pumping a fist in the air at the everyday rat race, its frustration pile drives—instead of plows—the listener every time the chorus circles around.
Magnitude and urgency keep coming through loud and clear. Credit the production for part of that, since the mix runs hot and vivid, as if the horde is live and performing at arm’s length. Steve Eagon’s fast, sharp guitar towers four-stories tall. Saxes whack like sledgehammers (“Heart for Sale”). Even the harp squalling through an already in-your-face “Preacher Blues” carries a sense of mass. But the lyrics can likewise be heavy-duty, as when the spiraling title track confesses a reversal in way of life.
So, brace yourself. Because Revelation is an unleashing of power, where each side keeps pouring gasoline on the other’s fire, stoking intensity higher and higher, hotter and hotter: the band’s express-train mentality ratchets up Piper; Piper’s gruff bark escalates the band. And the chain reaction keeps right on snowballing: the concrete punch thrown by “Come Back Knockin’” feeds the ‘let’s make some noise’ mandate in “Why Not Me” which, in turn, sparks “You’re Gonna Miss Me” into snake-hipped action. Yes, relative downtime is in very short supply across these 12 tracks. Not until “Twenty Long Years,” the closer, do the brakes get pumped. The slow, self-reflective blues roars in place within a turbulent sea of juggernauts.
Label: Hard Times
Release Date: 8/16/24
Artist Website: piperandthehardtimes.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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