Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
When Joe Bonamassa makes an entrance, the polite thing to do is to acknowledge the depth of arrival. However who wants polite when arguably the greatest and most prolific Blues guitarist of the last 40 years is in town, the only thing you should really do is applaud wildly and thank which ever deity you entrust your soul to, which ever spectrum of existence is closest to your overall reasoning, that there is a place in the universe for Joe Bonamassa.
Joe’s first studio album in nearly two years, the gratifying Different Shades of Blue, his first of entirely new songs in what seems an interminable age is an absolute snorter and yet somehow seems to be the most frank album, most brutally honest album he has ever placed before his fans. There is an unusual anger that seeps through the songs as ripe, as mature as a man being held in prison for 20 years for a crime he did not commit. Intertwined through the anger, almost going hand in hand with the fury, is sorrow, an unrelenting grief and feeling of a life that has temporarily gone askew. What better way to deal with the battling monsters of dejection and vehemence that by immersing yourself fully into the passion of Blues.
Different Shades of Blue sees Joe Bonamassa team up once more with producer Kevin Shirley and as it seems only correct to do, brings out the very best again in a man who strides across the musical generations like a giant. A giant who walks through life carefully avoiding the small pit falls that litter the path and who takes note of every single emotion so that he can capture the raw appeal of well strung guitar.
Whether through the song Oh Beautiful! in which the listener is reminded of the artistry of early Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green and the song Green Manalishi, through the bitterness that unfolds in Love Ain’t A Love Song, I Gave Up Everything For You, ‘Cept The Blues, Heartache Follows Wherever I Go and Trouble Town, Joe Bonamassa’s artistry shines through like a beacon sending out a flashlight in which sailors are guided by when stranger tides rock their storm tossed world.
Different Shades of Blue is not just arguably cathartic for Mr. Bonamassa; it reminds the listener that even those we sometimes laud above our own lives can also feel the desperation, the anger and the truth that lives in the heart of the Blues.
Ian D. Hall