In the nineties, maybe no one did more to bring electronic house music into the mainstream than Moby (QRO live review), and he’s kept up as one of the most successful and recognizable musicians in the genre (every bald, thirties-ish white guy with glasses is told they ‘look like Moby’), as he’s stretched his work to include numerous soundtrack appearances & compositions, political work and more. But as the guitarist in retro-seventies blues-rock outfit The Little Death, fronted by moveon.org Cultural Director Laura Dawn? Sure, why not…
Moby, Dawn, her husband/songwriter Daron Murphy and drummer Aaron Brooks started The Little Death back in 2007, but have only rarely played shows, and are digitally self-releasing their self-titled debut album. The beer-soaked blues "Intro" sets the stage, with Dawn at the center of it (akin to Jack White of The White Stripes – QRO live review – playing drums in side-project The Dead Weather – QRO album review – with Allison Mosshart of The Kills – QRO photos – as the frontwoman), getting her Joplin on. The Little Death then plays much like blues-rock in general: winning at first, with pieces like the bigger "Gather Round" and slyer, dirtier "That Bone", but still a somewhat limited art form (at least in the hands of younger, whiter folks…) that gets kind of one-note on songs such as the gospel-sad "Won’t Ever Let You Down Again", bump-and-grinder "Mean Woman", or diva-sad-grand "I Know You" & "Shake and Tremble". Even the party-blues ‘tragedy a-comin’’ of "Love Or a Gun" gets a little played out on the similar, following, big/stripped "Hurricane".
But that all has more to do with how you feel about blues, or at least blues played by modern musicians, than anything else. No, no one in The Little Death should quit their day jobs, but its pretty good for a barroom blues side outing.
MP3 Stream: "That Bone"
