01. Angel From Montgomery
02. Raccoon Song
03. The Freeze
04. Sanctified
05. River Of Tears
06. Nina
07. Drowning Blues
08. New York City Boy #3
09. Here Comes The Flood
10. I'd Rather Be Blind

Miss Mandy Lemons - Vocals
Sturgis Nikides - Guitars, Vocals
Jacky Verstraeten - Bass
Rick Steff - Organ, Piano, Accordion
Herman Green - Saxophones, Vocals
Bart De Bruecker - Drums

Low Society's 2014 release You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down (2014, Ice House Records) was a revelation to me. I had long ago grown jaded believing that vibrant, genre-expanding blues and Americana had passed into extinction. Then I heard "Need Your Love," my ears stiffened and I sniffed the air... hmm, something special here. I previously described this most perfect of compositions as,

"a most brilliant eutectoid of Texas Blues and pre-Weimar cabaret, with [Mandy] Lemons a Southern Fried Marlene Dietrich strung out on absinthe and gris-gris and [Sturgis] Nikides a demented Django plucking his nuclear strings."

After having given the band's first recording, High Time (2011, Rezonate Records), a thorough listening, what I was hearing in that "pre-Weimar cabaret" was actually a creative interpolation of Eastern Europe and parts further into this most American of musics. Several exchanges with guitarist Sturgis Nikides revealed that he and his family were of "Byzantine extraction," revealing the source of this rich vein of regional harmony passing through his most compelling compositions.

This Byzantine thread may be heard most potently passing through the introduction of High Time's slow burning "Texas Goodnight," passing through Good Woman's "Need Your Love," arriving in the present Sanctified's "The Freeze." In a separate William-Faulkner-stream-of-conscience exchange, Nikides spoke of another influence in these songs, that of a young Jimmy Page playing "White Summer" on the Yardbirds Live Yardbirds, featuring Jimmy Page (Epic, 1971). This was a soundboard recording of dubious pedigree, recorded at the Anderson Theatre in New York City on March 30, 1968, revealed a fully realized gem in the Eastern Indian and Arabic influenced "White Summer."

Well known in serious musical crowds, this performance featured a 24-year old Page already fully formed. In "White Summer" one can hear the echoes of what would become the classic sound of Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin IV (Atlantic, 1971); Houses of the Holy (Swan Song, 1973); and Physical Graffiti (Swan Song, 1975)). Of "White Summer," Nikides reveals:

"THIS is what initially set me off, as a very eager 12-year old (1970). ["White Summer] [c]aught my fancy, and I've been working variations of it ever since. Page used a DADGAD tuning. I modified it -DADACD. This is where "Black Pelican" (from High Time) and now "Nina" came from, in that tuning, directly referencing "White Summer..." Yardbirds Live at the Anderson Theater [an alternate title of the recording referenced above] was the album. Still gives me goosebumps."

That is how music is supposed to make you feel.

And it did me, when I queued up the present Low Society recording, Sanctified. Nikides the producer is an excellent producer, having programmed excellent opening songs for each of the band's recordings and Sanctified is no exception. This disc opens with a searing treatment of John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery." But, if you, gentle listener, are expecting some Kilz-coated Bonnie Raitt knock-off, then you will be presently surprised to hear the powerhouse within the band, Mandy Lemons (Nikides), and how she transforms the song. While Nikides (the guitarist) appeals to the intelligent pathos, Lemons reaches right down and grabs the listener by her/his lady-or man-parts, giving them a healthy torque. Yes, now she has your proper attention.

Nikides wills the introduction of Prine's song out of thin air, preparing a proper surrounding for Lemons' sensitive and muscular vocals. Lemons imbues the lyrics with an emotional urgency tempered with experience that never lost its hope. When the pair roll into the chorus, that is when the real goosebumps occur. As Lemons reveals her naked desire and memory, Nikides perfectly propels her with surging slide riffs peppered with open-string diamonds reverberating.

My previous summation of Mandy Lemons was one of beautifully unhinged abandon. And as powerfully attractive as that is, it is not fair. The high-wire aspect of any performance or expression is the ability to push that performance or expression to the brink of bedlam and keeping there without falling prey to the bedlam. In this, Lemons has no peer. Nikides and Lemons are textbook synergy, making something eclipsing the sum of their separate parts. That is the stuff "Angel from Montgomery" is made of.

One of the major charms of this recording it honest organicity woven into its harmonically and melodically sophisticated core. "The Freeze" boasts a soundtrack panorama built on a hypnotic two-chord vamp over which Lemons describes an emotive stasis of frigid proportions. Beneath this angst, Nikides' precise slide guitar keeps the fertile sound fresh. A country mile away is the title piece, a Texas Two-step sermon composed on the grave of Elmore James, Lemons declaring to all to, ..."take it easy." Nikides' slide guitar style is studiously informed and honed to the point that it is all his. His knowledge and technical ability is on the plain with Sonny Landreth's. This is further illustrated on "River of Tears," where Nikides' slide work is integrated into a 1950s-era ballad sound reminiscent of Santo and Johnny.

The aforementioned "Nina" is the disc's spiritual center point, bearing the fragrance of Page's "White Summer," but transmogrifying into something more, something bigger. Nikides lays electric slide guitar over his deft acoustic guitar foundation creating a dream-like state for Lemons to rage into the darkness. Sonically stunning, Nikides' slide guitar at once recalls Ry Cooder's contribution to "Sister Morphine" and Jimmy Page's rumination on the "Gallows Pole." Lemons ends the song with the echo of Nina Simone..."Mississippi Goddamn." At the other end of the organic spectrum is the New Orleans infused "Here Comes the Flood" a sweaty and humid shuffle straight out of Cosimo Matassa's NOLA studio.

The disc closes with Etta James' "I'd Rather Be Blind," a solid vehicle for Lemons, who draws every bit of ache from the lyrics, suspending them over Nikides's certain slide guitar playing. The pair tie a perfect ribbon around these 10 finely crafted songs with this old song. It is a beautiful package of Americana. ---C. Michael Bailey, allaboutjazz.com

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01 - Crammed & Jammed [00:04:48]
02 - Voodoo Woman [00:06:16]
03 - Need Yer Love [00:04:33]
04 - Son House Says [00:05:44]
05 - You Can't Keep A Good Woman Down [00:04:00]
06 - This Heart Of Mine [00:07:43]
07 - Up In Your Grave [00:03:48]
08 - Let Me Ride [00:04:50]
09 - No Money Down [00:02:20]
10 - You Got A Right [00:03:04]
11 - El Diablo [00:03:58]

Bass Guitar – Nick Dodson
Composed By, Guitar, Producer, Vocals – Sturgis Nikides
Composed By, Vocals – Mandy Lemons Nikides
Drums, Percussion – Mike Munn
Harmonica, Vocals – Brian Hawkins
Piano – John Shaw
Saxophone – Herman Green
Vocals – Lee Booth

Let's not insult Low Society lead vocalist Mandy Lemons by noting she was influenced by Janis Joplin. That is the lazy critic's out. Better we describe her as the love child of a serious Amy Winehouse and Big Mama Thornton, irradiated by beta particles that had once passed by an AM radio, late at night, playing "Ball and Chain" in 1968. Lemons is a tornadic force of nature laying waste to all of the blues-rock produced since the 1960s. Lemons is who Sass Jordan wishes she was and who Susan Tedeschi almost reaches. You get the idea.

It does not hurt her or her band's bona fides that Lemons and company are centered in Memphis, TN...the rightful, justified and sanctified home of the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland, Pshaw!) where they studied at the knee of local legend Dr. Herman Green, evolving from a well-intentioned blues band into a musical vision reaching critical mass. For all of the talk here of Lemons, she does have a partner, guitarist Sturgis Nikides, who plays guitar, slide and standard, at a level above most. Nikides is the first slide guitarist I have heard employ Sonny Landreth's pioneering fingering behind the slide, giving his playing a textured, tactile sound buffeted with intelligently selected overdrive and tremolo. He does so effectively.

This is not a band solely based on technique and effects. This band, following its mistress Lemons' lead, is a feral and untethered spirit that makes its musical statement like the basement door slamming in the dark, off its hinges. Powerful, virtuosic and savage, Low Society reveals its uncompromising character in the first three songs, all bolstered by the remainder of the disc. The opener "Crammed & Jammed" has a Delta cum Chicago slide crunch established by Nikides and Lemons singing with moonshine abandon. Rick Steff provides a roaring B3 wave for the band to surf. This is the New South kicking in the screen door.

"Voodoo Woman" is a twelve-bar blues riding on the back of the freshest slide-guitar riff recently conceived. This is where Nikides summons his inner Sonny Landreth, turning the gas on high and breathing deep. Soupy and humid, the bayou hitched a ride from Metairie and headed upriver to Memphis and the lobby of the Peabody Hotel. Lemons is the voodoo woman and her charms are as dangerous as they are sensual...everything costs something. "Need Your Love" is a most brilliant eutectoid of Texas Blues and pre-Weimar cabaret, with Lemons a Southern Fried Marlene Dietrich strung out on absinthe and gris-gris and Nikides a demented Django plucking his nuclear strings. Steff's accordion is a perfect ringer thrown into this miasmic circus of sound.

It this is not eclectic enough, "Son House Says" is a throwback '70s jam evoking the spirit of its Father. "This Heart of Mine" mines the Jimi Hendrix-Stevie Ray Vaughan blues axis of all its guitar gold and silver. Lemons and Nikides go to church in "Up in Your Grave" while taking a country honk in the saloon-piano fueled "Let Me Ride." "No Money Down" has Nikides playing his best Luther Perkins while Lemons channels Patsy Cline from Dante's vestibule of Hades. Over the top, you ask? This band is over the top, deserving every twisted metaphor given them. I won't hear another recording of new music better this year. ---C. Michael Bailey, allaboutjazz,com

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