Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world is on a knife edge, a relentless march to its own seemingly assured destruction, one that cannot arguably be stopped and one that has left eminent scientist Stephen Hawking to conclude there may be only a 1’000 years for Humanity to survive and for the planet to be rid of its gorging hosts; perhaps the best thing to do to at least stem the tide is for the population to look deep in its own soul and Make Blues Not War.
The news will be the death of us all, locked in a cycle of media driven hate and fake wringing of hands, music on the other hand can heal, can spank the backside of the continually 24 hour rolling news item, where it becomes more about opinion and speculation that it does actual fact. There is only one fact that is needed, Mike Zito has returned once more to set the world aflame and place before the Blues loving nation a set of songs that make them trust what they hear, even if the world says they cannot trust their eyes.
The second Mike Zito album since he departed from the Royal Southern Brotherhood is a piece of work that will have fans cracking the finest bottle of Tennessee bourbon open and saluting the health of the Blues man, of the songs he has already created and those yet to come, for surely in the mind of someone so astute in their craft, can only come more nuggets of lyrical gold.
The canvas so it seems is painted in a delicate shade of blue, the finest kind, the most natural and with it, the artists easel is humbly stood erect and given absolute pride of place, the artist is at work, every song one of deep introspection and one that comments of the finer things in life, not being drawn into the squalor or mire.
In tracks such as Wasted Time, Redbird, the super Crazy Legs, One More Train and the personal Chip off the Block, Mike Zito, with his band, Tom Hambridge, Tommy MacDonald and Rob McNelley, with guest musicians including the great Walter Trout and Zach Zito, gives the power of personal control over what you allow to affect you a hold that is easy to bear, that the vileness we allow to be inflicted upon us by the media can be, if we truly know it, blocked out and filtered; yes there is nothing wrong with being informed but that doesn’t mean we have to allow the infantile and lies to get in to the bloodstream.
Make Blues Not War is a super second album by Mike Zito, one that really sets the standard of what is surely to come.
Ian D. Hall