Danny Bryant: Blood Money

Bluesman guests with Walter Trout and Bernie Marsden.

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Just 35 years old, UK guitarist Danny Bryant was not yet born when the blues revival entered its autumn stages. However, he has absorbed the genre in every last fibre of his considerable being, and sweats the blues from every pore.

His style is chunky and chewy, sometimes funk-tinged, as on the opener Blood Money (featuring his mentor US blues guitarist Walter Trout), other times sailing a little dangerously close to heavy metal; when he sings, as on Sara Jayne, it’s with the standard-issue hoarseness of a metal crooner.

Lyrically, there are one or two unhappy moments; ‘You’ve got to live while you’re alive’, he advises on Slow Suicide, which some might say is hard to avoid doing under those circumstances. He’s in his element cutting loose instrumentally, and not necessarily over-elaborating; the one-note solo during On The Rocks is perhaps the most powerful, exhilarating moment on the album.

David Stubbs

David Stubbs is a music, film, TV and football journalist. He has written for The Guardian, NME, The Wire and Uncut, and has written books on Jimi Hendrix, Eminem, Electronic Music and the footballer Charlie Nicholas.