Joe Bonamassa
★★★★ The Path Of The Clouds
★★
Time Clocks PROVOGUE.CD/DL/LP
NY blues guitar titan gets autobiographical.
As sure as night follows day, another year brings another Joe Bonamassa album. Time Clocks is his 16th solo set and doesn’t deviate much from the 15 which came before. Its predecessor, Royal
was an homage to the late-’60s Brit blues boom, but got a little lost when the pandemic derailed any touring plans. Recorded in New York with long-time producer Kevin Shirley, Time Clocks addresses its creator’s personal journey. The title track suggests a man too focused on music to function in the outside world and provides a glimpse into the exhaustingly stoic Bonamassa’s mindset. Elsewhere, The Loyal Kind’s folksy intro evokes Jethro Tull, and Curtain Call’s Eastern rhythms take the listener to the foothills of Kashmir. But The Heart That Never Waits and Mind’s Eye are dragging, pomp-rock ballads. His solos still dazzle and the riff to Notches could move mountains, but too much of Time Clocks suggests Bonamassa by numbers. Mark Blake
BELLA UNION. CD/DL/LP
Exquisitely wrought tales of mystery and imagination.
D.B. COOPER hijacked a plane over the Pacific Northwest in 1971. After forcing a landing to collect the ransom he demanded, the journey resumed. He also wanted parachutes and, over Washington state, he jumped. Some of the money was later found but as to Cooper’s fate, no one knows. The title track of Marissa Nadler’s ninth album draws from this perplexing tale, repurposing it as a metaphor for controlling destiny. The album starts with Bessie Did You Make It?, a fully fictive rumination on the title character’s perilous canoe excursion. In time, bones are found. Are they Bessie’s? The beautifully poised
is packed with such mysteries. Musically, Nadler’s virtuoso, downbeat songs radiate the foreboding accompanying the inspection of a locked room being reopened after decades. Perfect for David Lynch, should he require stimulation.