Review: Tab Benoit – I Hear Thunder
Tab Benoit – I Hear Thunder
Format: CD – Digital / Label: Whiskey Bayou Records
Release: 2024
Text: Tom Wouters
‘I Hear Thunder’ is the first studio album in 13(!) years by singer/guitarist Tab Benoit. An album with 10 tracks full of gritty blues rock written by Benoit with his songwriting buddy guitarist Anders Osborne, who also plays on the album as part of Benoit’s band with Gary Duplechin on bass and Terence Higgins on drums.
The title song I Hear Thunder opens the album and is robust blues rock performed by power guitarist Benoit and his rock solid rhythm section. We also find that sound in songs like Inner Child (blues rock à la Free), Why, Why and Bayou Man.
In two songs, guest musician George Porter Jr., bassist of The Meters, adds a great funk groove, which immediately makes I Am A Write That Down the highlight of the album.
Stylistically different are the country-like slow blues Still Gray and the slow blues Overdue, where the band sounds like a gritty version of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.
The typical live artist Tab Benoit has delivered a live-in-the-studio album with ‘I Hear Thunder,’ with music firmly rooted in 70s blues rock.
Tracks:
01. I Hear Thunder
02. The Ghost of Gatemouth Brown
03. Still Gray
04. Inner Child
05. Watching the Gators Roll In
06. Overdue
07. Why, Why
08. Little Queenie
09. I’m A Write That Down
10. Bayou Man
Website: https://www.tabbenoit.com/