It’s tricky doing blues rock in 2022. You have a market filled with giants, saturated with immense talent, continually decreasing fresh ideas, and those are topped with diminishing demand. It not only requires talent to tackle but a fair amount of courage too.
This is where Jeremy Engel shines on this product, with courage. ‘Tell You Ma’ is his newest output. A powerful anthem for Ireland from the French-born songwriter, fearlessly tackling all the tropes you’d expect from a rider’s rock anthem. Punchy guitars with snappy tones, raspy and powerful vocals, rock solid beats, and roaring keyboards. It even features a huge harp solo. All the ingredients you need.
The execution, however, turns out to be a little rough around the edges. The drums, for example, while strong, are not situated well in the mix, so they end up sound buried and lacking drive at points, even though the performance contains some very solid chops. The guitars, while neither overly harsh nor meek and the tones are near perfect and throaty, sometimes overlap, creating moments of confusion. The vocals and the keyboards on the upside are flawless, and the solo on the distorted blues harp is a definite highlight of the song.
Courage pays off in itself. It is the reward of courageous acts. And for this reason, I commend Jeremy Engel for sticking true to what he saw fit and what he felt. Maybe next time the mix will do him a better service in producing a song that delivers on all angles.
