Album: Kick up the Dust

Song Title

Time

Your Boyfriends' Blues

Work Hard, for What?

Let It Come Down

Most Days

Soldiers of Christ

Kick Up the Dust

In the Forest, Under the Moon

Good Lover

Try for You

10)

Get Someplace Else

11)

I Don't Believe

12)

McDonald's Blues

Album: Kick up the Dust

Song Title

Time

Your Boyfriends' Blues

Work Hard, for What?

Let It Come Down

Most Days

Soldiers of Christ

Kick Up the Dust

In the Forest, Under the Moon

Good Lover

Try for You

10)

Get Someplace Else

11)

I Don't Believe

12)

McDonald's Blues

Performer Notes

Personnel: DeAndra Vaughn, Amber Webber, Dante DeCaro, Jennifer Lee (vocals).
Audio Mixers: Peter Moore; Steve Fisk.
Recording information: Deadwood Studio, Vancouver Island (11/2004-07/2005); The Hive Studio, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (11/2004-07/2005).
Photographer: Joe West .
On KICK UP THE DUST, singer-songwriter Matt Camirand puts a menacing fang into barroom country tropes in the same unabashedly referential but nonetheless vibrant way his Black Mountain bandmate Stephen McBean does stoner rock. The loose drumming (courtesy of Joshua Welles, also of Black Mountain), shambling acoustic guitars, and noose-tying lyrics echo Keith Richards's understanding of honky-tonk circa LET IT BLEED. Where the Vancouver band lacks originality, they more than make up in raucous group spirit and rag-and-bone emotion, the only thing songs such as the nihilistic "Work Hard, For What?" and "Let It Come Down" need to work. By the time listeners reach the falsetto lament of "Most Days," overt influences won't matter a whit.

Professional Reviews

Q (p.106) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]n the shape of earnest five-piece rockers Blood Meridian, grunge is waking from a decade-long hibernation."

Alternative Press (p.226) - "Camirand and his band bring their rock sensibilities to bear upon the usual themes of country heartbreak and forlorn blues."

Magnet (pp.86-87) - "Blood Meridian's second album pokes at Americana's dark underbelly, scraping off scales of twang noir and filtering them through a druggy haze."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.94) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]heirs is a strain of Americana perpetually wandering between bar room floor and open plain."