Romi Mayes "Achin' in Yer Bones" (Independent 2009)

The girl’s got attitude

Without putting too fine a point on things, the back story of Canada’s Romi Mayes reads like something of a cliché. As a teenager she lived the Kerouacian drifter life, travelling around Canada (and calling her Mum to save her!). In 2006, Mayes hooked up with renowned producer and multi-instrumentalist Gurf Morlix to record her album ‘Sweet Somethin’ Steady’. She now has a reputation as ‘Canada’s hardest working musician’ leading up to the release of her new album ‘Achin in Yer Bones’.

However, it becomes abundantly clear as one listens to Morlix’s filthy slide guitar on the eponymous opener that Mayes is a woman with plenty to say and a hard rocking blues band with which to say it. The first half of this album sets out the Mayes manifesto like a punch to the kidneys. She veers from crunching blues rock to sweet country (‘Somethin’ Going On’) and on to ballads (‘I Won’t Cry’) without breaking her stride, or breaking into a sweat. Mayes is not re-inventing the wheel here but that is not the point. Her influences can be heard bursting through on every track – from Tom Waits through to Bonnie Raitt – but Mayes is adept at taking the familiar and moulding it into something all of her own. Her band plays sympathetically allowing the songs and Mayes vocals to shine through.

Lyrically, like Morlix’s other protégée, Lucinda Williams, Mayes trawls around the sadder and sometimes seedier side of life. She takes great delight in describing failed love affairs as the scars of life’s battles. If you like your artists to possess grit and strong albeit traditional sounding songs, then Romi Mayes has got everything you need right here. Excellent stuff!

Date review added:  Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Reviewer:  Dan Wilkinson
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  Romi's Place