Album Review: Manny Blu, DEViL

I’m just going to spit this out: DEViL, the new EP from Manny Blu and follow-up to last November’s ace New Ink, is balls and ballast from top to bottom. But it’s not a record a clerk at Sunrise would reflexively file under country. It may have been crafted in Blu’s adopted home of Nashville alongside dyed-in-the-wool country cohorts but spin three of the album’s five tracks on a rock radio station between Stone Temple Pilots and Sam Roberts and smart money says nobody’d be the wiser.

The exception is smitten ballad “Valet,” one of two tracks featuring a guest vocalist, in this case Brittany Kennell, a contestant on The Voice — and perhaps more consequentially, the first female Québecoise country artist to perform at the Grand Ole Opry — whose crisp mezzo entwines nicely with Blu’s adrenalized howl as the pair recount a wine-soaked rendezvous necessitating the services of the song’s title. 

OK, so maybe “Circle Up” cuts the rug with its ostrich-skin boots firmly pulled on, mainly owing to its sorta hayseed imagery and featured guest Blaine Holcomb’s audible drawl. But the balance is charging guitars and jackhammering drums, especially “Train” which rides an indelible chorus to a fist-pumping, Bic lighter–waving climax. It’s all crafted and good and approachable…  but there’s scant sawdust on this here floor.

DEViL was released August 20, 2021.
Listen to it here.