Fast Nasties - Dead Rat Cafe (2019)

Nouveau Blues, the new full-length album from Seattle's Fast Nasties, sounds just as fresh today as it would have on your turntable in 1975. Drawing on elements that infuse the hard R&B/Soul roots of Detroit with echoes of classic rock, these blues offer a fresh, bold take on the genre.

"We like to call our music 'Progressive Blues,'" says guitarist Andreas Laursen. "It's a re-imagining of roots music beyond expected 12-bar standard of the blues. Think ‘Motown meets Led Zeppelin.’ It's built on blues roots, but the style we've developed uses that as a base for something much more melodically uninhibited."

"Our aim with this album," adds lead singer Eric Martin, "is to show that blues (as the purists know it) can vcoexist within the same composition as many of its subgenres: rock, soul, funk, and gospel. We try to weave a wide range of genres into our arrangements. That blending and layering leads to new interpretations of what blues can be, it gives our music a kind of richness and depth you don't associate with traditional blues."

Indeed, Fast Nasties genre-expanding groove straddles decades of music with ease. The more you listen, the more hard-pressed you'll be to come up with an album title more appropriate than Nouveau Blues.