Miraculous Mule - Blues Uzi (2014)

London three-piece band Miraculous Mule release 'Two Tonne Testimony', their second album. Following on from their 2013 debut 'Deep Fried' and the 2014 mini-album 'Blues Uzi', brothers Michael J Sheehy (guitar / vocals) and Patrick McCarthy (bass / vocals), along with childhood friend Ian Burns (drums), have taken knife-edged blues, gospel-driven rock & roll and elements of psychedelic soul and stoner / space rock to create a collection of songs for living in troubled times. 'Sound Of The Summer' starts out as a paean to long, hot sunny days and sticky nights before morphing into a song about civil unrest and the death of protest. 'Where Monsters Lead' was written in response to the rise of far-right demagogues two years before the likes of Trump, Farage and their supporters led us off the edge of a cliff. For the title track, Sheehy spins a rollercoaster yarn casting himself as a gun-running, drug-dealing, porn-peddling son of Satan who wanders through a world populated by heavily armed outlaw relatives and a religious cult that commits mass suicide. This album draws on substance, humour and soul to deliver a visceral, angry commentary for bleak times. It's rock & roll as salvation.