Supersonic Blues Machine has revealed the “Is It All” video featuring Grammy-nominated blues icon Joe Louis Walker. The song is taken from their new studio album, Voodoo Nation, released in June this year via Provogue/Mascot Label Group. You can watch the video HERE.
The album once again featured another coming together of icons and some of the most exciting names in blues; Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke), Eric Gales, Joe Louis Walker, Ana Popovic, Kirk Fletcher, King Solomon Hicks, Josh Smith & Sonny Landreth.
They have already previously released the videos for “8 Ball Lucy” ft. Sonny Landreth, “All Our Love” ft. Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke), “Money”, and “Too Late.”
The sumptuous 70s soul of “Too Late” sees Kris Barras and Walker trade vocals with a poignant message. When talking about the song, Fabrizio Grossi says, “‘ Is it all?’ is the question that everyone will end up asking themselves at some point in life. In tune with the overall opinionated theme of Voodoo Nation: we are living in really fucked-up times. We are living in what it’s possibly the technological peak of our generation (X, Z and millennials). Yet, the extreme superficiality and materialistic quests of these last few years leave us wondering: Is it really all? Is this frenzy and overstimulated (yes, desensitized) race to get to the end of the day, all that life has to offer or is there something else? And if so, where do we look?”
He continues, “The answer is very simple and very “Buddhist”: within oneself! That’s where we’ll find out who we are, what we’re looking for and what really makes us happy. I had an endless conversation with Joe Louis Walker about “what the hell is up with us humans, and very specifically with us humans here on this side of the world”, and I am happy he got to be the one singing about it with us. He keeps it real and puts you in the position of doing the same, and that’s why he is so special to all of us”.
“The general discontent in the world at the moment is so widespread, we get told to embrace it because that’s life,” says Fabrizio Grossi. “No, that’s not life,” he asserts. “It’s how we’re forced to live nowadays. Voodoo Nation refers to the times we’re living in, at least here in the States, but I guess the whole world can relate. We’re getting to the point where we’re living out life almost as Zombies. We’re little machines.”
At the core of the band are producer/bass player Fabrizio Grossi (Steve Vai, Alice Cooper, George Clinton, Slash) and drummer Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, Meat Loaf, Brandon Flowers, John Fogerty, Red Hot Chili Peppers) with British rocker Kris Barras replacing Lance Lopez as singer-guitarist. Barras’s recent UK Top 30 album chart hit in March, leading the pack of the British hard rock revival with several A-list singles, BBC Radio appearances and sell-out shows.
Their third studio album was met with rave reviews when the album was released. Classic Rock said it was “Setting the blues bar ever higher with studio album number three…Voodoo Nation is the sound of modern blues in the ascendant,” Fireworks claimed the album has “Taken the band to the next level,” with Powerplay hailing it as “A contender for blues album of the year.”
More praise came from Record Collector, calling it a “Classy third album from the blues-expanding trio,” with Blues in Britain describing it as “Atmospheric, distinctive and decidedly involving,” and Blues Matters heaped praise, saying it was “The most complete album yet by the band.”
The lyrical front on Voodoo Nation is less forgiving than everything in the past. “I’m not saying fuck flower power because that’s always the message,” Grossi says. “But there are very introspective things and a lot of the theatrics that we are dealing with on this record which I would say are fairly common in the blues but are dealt with a twist. There is a lot of Devil’s stuff in this record.”
But there is always hope, which is what Supersonic Blues Machine has always been about.
