Ian Rilen - Booze toBlame

Wed 27th Apr, 2005 in Music Reviews

If Gene Vincent were alive today, and not at the birth of rock ‘n roll as we know it, he’d arguably be recording songs like Booze to Blame.

Dirty swampy sleazy rock with a tattoo insignia on the cover. Leather, microphones squeezed with urgency, nervous breakdown guitar leads sporadically peppering the verses. Timeless rock like Phantom Records used to do back before the underground went massive and everything changed. When people bought 7”s and a record launch was actually something special.

You would think after thirty odd years in the business that Ian Rilen might’ve tired of the booze and pub thing. An unkind comment? Oh well. That’s exactly what I thought when I feasted my peepers on this baby. After the first guitar onslaught (not even halfway through the title track), all attitude and little technique, my cynicism got a kick up the arse and was told to get the hell out. What a track! I ain’t ever been anti-pub rock; it’s just that I grew up in a high school full of the dumbest, meanest, most narrow-minded sheep you’d ever wanna meet. So it kinda came to personify the type of guy who would have it as their calling card. Funny how that shit tends to stick.

Ian Rilen these days is starting to sound more and more like one of them old blues masters – a 300 pound voice leaning into a microphone, telling you “I’m a bad man when I’m drinkin, you can guess the rest” or “I’ve been seeing the wrong ladies lately, they’ve been fucking up my life big time”.
 
Blues is sort of back in fashion these days, but not the kind Rilen is peddling on this EP, no siree. Nasty, dirty, honest, from the mallow, ya hear. There ain’t no candy stripes on this drum kit. More to the point, it’s dangerous. Like it ain’t about nothing but how bad everything is. And how that can be, sometimes, just perfect. After all, it’s the booze to blame, not the man drinking it.