Fear not music fans! The scary looking Jon Spencer has merely been dropped from the band’s moniker and not the outfit themselves. The band formerly known as The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have the same explosive line-up as on their previous six outings, including their last meisterwork, Plastic Fang. This time around though, Spencer, Judah Baeur and Russell Simins are joined from time to time by some of the leading lights of the dance/electronic scene, with DJ Shadow, Martina Topley-Bird and David Holmes having some input into the Blues Explosion’s trademark rawk shuffle.
The opening and title track sees the band setting out their stall, their usual bluesy bluster tempered by a trip-hop sensibility. Former Tricky cohort Topley-Bird lends her distinctively gorgeous vocal stylings to the gently soulful ‘Spoiled’ and the rockier ‘You Been My Baby’, both of which are produced by David Holmes under his Free Association guise. Public Enemy mainman Chuck D trades vocals with Spencer on the menacing, incendiary ‘Hot Gossip’, which is up there with the best work either has ever done. DJ Shadow’s unique influence can be heard on ‘Fed Up And Low Down’, which could be the world’s first trip-rock outing ever.
Normal Blues Explosion service is resumed on the stomping ‘Burn It Off’, which comes complete with the kind of searing chorus the trio are famed for, the familiar cowpunk-meets-rockabilly of ‘Mars, Arizona’, and the aptly titled ‘Crunchy’, whose guitar riffs spit forth with a satisfyingly meaty sound. Elsewhere, the brass-driven instrumental ‘Rivals’ is the aural equivalent of a car chase, while ‘Blowing My Mind’ shows all the young bucks that these old masters know how real blues-driven rock should sound. ‘Help These Blues’ is a deliciously diabolical concoction of swamp blues, vampire rock and dancefloor savvy, with Spencer noting that, “We are not in the service of the devil, but sometimes I feel his sick breath on my behind.”
With Damage, the Blues Explosion have lost none of their bluster, but by adding a few unusual musical spices into the mix, they’ve successfully created their most enjoyable album to date.