Originally hailing from California, Dylan Blackthorn is an Austin, Texas transplant. He’s worked with national touring acts such as The 999 EYES Freakshow & Surreal Sideshow and, alongside his current solo career, plays with steampunk/goblincore mainstays THAT Damned Band and the Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour, among others. He keeps busy. His devotion to a wide variety of traditional music reveals itself on his solo debut, but he never limits himself to the typical blues/country influences favored by so many of his contemporaries. Blackthorn has discovered a stylistic avenue to express himself in guises unlike anyone else working today and his accordion playing is a cut far above average. His skill with the instrument reminds you of what the greatest guitarists accomplish without any of the accompanying self-indulgence.
WEBSITE: https://dylanblackthorn.com/
Harmonica and accordion duel with a fiery outcome during the opener “Played by the Numbers”. Several tracks included on small flames have a rowdy, rough-hewn approach full of raucous passion and kicking off the release with one of those tracks may not be representative of his work on the whole but, nonetheless, sweeps listeners into the album’s world with rollicking confidence. “Stoked” is one of the likely underrated moments on the album. Blackthorn shows he’s adept at incorporating a credible country music influence into his work without ever moving too far afield from what he does best. It has a jaunty kick from beginning to end.
He successfully introduces piercing lead electric guitar into the track “Ten of Wands” and the extra color it brings to bear transforms this from good to great. Blackthorn has to walk a bit of a tightrope with its words; making Tarot card references might alienate or baffle some listeners, but Blackthorn eludes such pitfalls. It is a hard hitting and groove dependent track. “Silver Halo Blues” is as well but lacks the electric guitar punch heard in the previous number. Blackthorn attacks his performance with zest yet never overdoes it and that’s especially key as the song’s subject matter is far from the eternal topics such as love, lust, or heartbreak. The handclaps and backing vocals are memorable additions.
BANDCAMP: https://dylanblackthorn.bandcamp.com/album/stoked-single
Samantha Blackthorn’s flute playing is an important component in the success of “The Reindeer Waltz”, but the musical mood is as critical for making it work. It’s obvious Blackthorn and his musical partners have an enormous amount of feel for this style of music and there’s no audible heavy lifting they must do to make it successful. The album has two instrumentals and the second, “Bessarabian Traffic Jam”, is its most successful. There are some scattered vocals during the track, but they are scatting along to the music rather than offering any lyrical content.
The long instrumental introduction opening “Starry Secrets” invokes atmospherics without much effort and the violin is particularly strong. It’s the album’s longest track, running a few seconds over eight minutes, but there’s never any sense of Blackthorn biting off more than he can chew. It closes small flames on a fitting note, reaching outside the lines for a big statement, and even its self-conscious design as the album’s ending number cannot undo its impact.
The release is a little long with thirteen tracks, it would pack even more of a wallop with ten or eleven tracks, but I wouldn’t envy anyone forced to decide on what tracks he would have to drop. Each of the songs on this album has its merits. It’s, overall, one of the year’s best releases.
Jodi Marxbury