Andreas Diehlmann Band - Long Way To Go (2023) [CD Rip]

Personnel:
Andreas Diehlmann - Vocals/Guitars
Tom Bonn - Drums
Jörg Sebald - Bass
Tom Bornemann - Organ

Seven albums and an extensive Best Of compilation in just under five years. This is the output of Kassel blues rock guitarist Andreas Diehlmann, which is well worth listening to. Now, six years after his debut, his eighth album will be released in early May. Quantity doesn't always have to equal quality, but it's fundamentally different with Diehlmann, and it wasn't for nothing that he received the "German Blues Award" last year.

On the current album, too, the guitarist and his two comrades-in-arms Jörg Sebald (bass) and Tom Bonn (drums) present themselves as an outstandingly well-rehearsed power trio. A dusty-sounding dobro opens the album, but after a short, relaxed intro, Diehlmann and his Fellow musicians on "Long Way To Go" working title "Redemption" clear: There will be no redemption in a positive sense during the next ten songs. The listener will be captivated in the following 40 minutes and remain in the hands of the Andreas Diehlmann Band throughout all the songs.

Sometimes the band seems conventional. "Pretty Baby" is a straight forward boogie number. But what sounds random at first is by no means so, because the band also plays big with these numbers, is gripping and gets to the point. On "Bad Luck" Hammond organist Tom Bornemann supports the band, which as a quartet creates the best relaxed but powerful southern rock feeling. Appropriately, as with all other numbers, Diehlmann's grater voice.

Straightforward and forward-thinking are numbers like "Way To Hell" and "Wedding Dress," which could easily be hits by the long-bearded Texas trio. Here, too, the band proves not to be a cheap copy, but equal.

“Broken”, a classic blues-rock ballad, offers great, emotional cinema, in which Bornemann weaves a tapestry of sound with the B3, on which Diehlmann takes off with a breathtaking solo. The result, a number with goosebump potential.

Enchanting, the classic slow blues "Baby It's Gonna Rain All Night", in which Diehlmann plays wonderful blue notes over the warm Hammond-B3 sound carpet and Tom Bornemann also shows all his skills with a solo. Yes, you've heard something like that before, but rarely as good as here! (Uwe Meyer)