Trevor Babajack Steger was one half of Babajack but this album sees him striding out as a solo musician. He has a voice that has all the smoothness of a rusty buzzsaw  but he has no problem making himself clear and the songs on this album are darkly and deeply steeped in Blues. He plays a mean acoustic guitar but his main strength is his harmonica playing and with his Danneker harps he certainly makes a more musical noise than most of the supposed players out there. The sound takes me back to hearing some of the Blues greats back in the day – guys such as Sonny Terry or Big Walter Horton, even James Cotton – that haunting voice coming at you right out of the middle of the soundstage, interspersed with howling harp and almost using the guitar for rhythm rather than as a lead instrument. When he uses the guitar alone, as he does on River Song, he demonstrates real ability to carry a melody and set up a beautiful backdrop to his vocals. When he is singing you cannot do anything else but listen to him – he has an immediacy and charisma that draws you close to the music and I cannot think of any other solo artist that I’ve heard in the last couple of years who demands your attention in the same way. I would have to say that he makes music that I want to listen to, music than on the face of it is simple and stark but that has complexities in the sound and in his playing that make it really satisfying to delve into time and again. 

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ALAN PEARCE - BLUES MATTERS