Trevor's House - Dallas Frasca and Her Gentleman

Not to long ago, a blues singer I know introduced me to an artist she was rather fond of, given her rough and raw delivery and driving hooks and backing, she called it "dirty down under mississippi delta blues", which, being the blues man I am at heart, drew my attention. The band she introduced me too was Dallas Frasca and Her Gentleman, a blues duo from Pambula, New South Wales, Australia, though by listening to Dallas' voice, you'd never know that. their style is kind of a amalgam of sub genres of blues and old school rock with the modern heartfelt female power ballading women of today's rock. Its kind of like if Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin formed a band, musically and vocally, with Dallas both singing and doing guitar, while her gentlemen as it were, picks up the rest, vocally, Dallas seems to be somewhere in a class of her own, as a woman who was self taught by means of a radio who was her only company on 12 hour shifts as a lab tech, has a stand alone sound that shifts effortlessly from soft and beautiful to raw and an almost thunderous Battlecry on the gruff and hard edged tracks.



These reasons are why, of Dallas' few albums to her name, I picked "Trever's House" as the one to showcase here, it swings the entire length of Dallas' spectrum as an artist, from slow and beautiful to harsh and guitar driven, to everything in between. I've always believed an album should be a trip around the universe in sound, not just a drive around the block in your grandmother's old car just to show off for the neighbors, in that respect i wasn't let down once with this disc. The album starts out with "Define Addiction" a slow starting track that builds to these beautiful hard rock guitar hooks that crash and boom like thunderheads in the night sky, lovely start track, very smart choice. Followed by "No Coincidence" a lovely hard driving rock track, its very reminiscent of those grandus 1970s rock ballads you'd find as an album track on a Led Zepplin album, just on a shorter scale, lovely as well. Next is "rejuvenation" which is infact my favorite track on this disc, i find myself singing the hook at odd times, and the music is awesome, I love the 1940s mambo style beginning that goes into one of those trippy late 60s british rock style tracks, it actually had me kind of dancing in my chair, which, not easy to do.



The rest of the album expands from there, high energy booming guitars, driving drums and well constucted hooks and lyrics. As I listen to her I get a feeling like I'm at this smokey little club in Oz and just watching in awe of the power and drive the band has, which is what really sells the album, its that feeling that this is what they live for, what they love and what they can't breath with out, their desire to sound like no one thats out today, mixed with improvisation and knowing when to put the right songs in the right places, just make them a joy to listen too, another stand out track on the album is "positive contagious" which might be the most mellow song on the whole disc honestly, I love how there is no real growling, or howling, or power ballading, its just nice mellow music with nice mellow vocals as well, beautiful track, its follow up is "One Cent" which has this amazing blues rock song with guitar beats that are like rough hot sex in music form, with vocals that match it perfectly, the song also gets points for the word "shitabyss" which is a lovely reference to the canadian cult tv show Trailer Park Boys, where it was introduced.



There are more tracks on the album, but I have this sort of "you have to listen too it instead of me telling you about it" kind of feeling on it, I mean would you want to tell someone about a rollercoaster ride or would you rather put them in the cart and make'um ride that bad boy with you? Yeah, its conflicting that way, I wanna rave about it, but i don't wanna ruin the surprises. I would say though, everyone should have a listen to this, atleast once, the journey it takes you on is just so beautiful to the ears. Beautiful music by a beautiful and unique woman, which I hope you all will enjoy.

as for kind of a sample... well, I couldn't find a video from this album, but I did find a video of Dallas doing "Old Fashion Morphine" which will give you an idea of her vocals.



Artist: Dallas Frasca and Her Gentleman
Hompage: http://www.dallasfrasca.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/dallasfrascamusic
Album: Trevor's House
Genre: Rock/Blues/Old School Rock
Download: click this

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BC