Big Boy Bloater - Dirty Disco Blues (2025) Hi-Res

Dextrous Guitar Playing, Adventurous and Imaginative R&B Songwriting Creating a Great Time For All. I had to double check the release date of Big Boy Bloater’s last album PILLS … 2018!

... SEVEN years ago ...

A lot has and hasn’t happened in that time; we had Covid and its assorted lockdowns plus Mr and Mrs Bloater packed up the charabanc and moved to SW France to live and and build a studio in barn.
The downside was he fell off my radar until a month ago when he got in touch regarding this album, where he plays every single instrument and produced it himself in his basement studio … which is quite remarkable when you hear it.
Our man’s vocals and to some degree his guitar playing are certainly distinctive and home grown; but as anyone who has been with him since the beginning (1998 Jumpin’ Rhythm and Blues) will no he’s ‘progressed’ with every release and no two albums sounding quite like whatever preceded it … which is clever and amazingly skillful too.

The titular Dirty Disco Blues opens the album and comes in somewhere between The Pills and Loopy albums; and then some, as he creates a sound that’s obviously 100% Big Boy Bloater … but more intense and, dare I say it … more adventurous; which might sound incongruous, but isn’t.

That combination carries on through the imaginative Kensington Gore and I Don’t Miss You As Much As I Thought I Would which may be a break-up song or possibly two fingers to the music industry! Whichever, it has a really catchy hook that reminds me of the Glam Rock of my youth!

As you’d expect Bloater’s dextrous guitar skills are front and centre here; most notably on SHUT UP! and the slithering Nasty Little Rash, but even then the focus is very much on the song itself and Our Man’s vocals.

With such a long gap between albums it’s fascinating to hear where his mind has gone songwriting wise. He’s not strayed too far from his succesful template; but I can’t imagine him writing/recording the likes of The Devil Went Down to Rehab or the Country Rock tinged I’m a Lucky So and So when he was a younger man as both can only come from the experiences a musician of a certain age has experienced.

Speaking of which; his imagination has been set free again with the finale Escape From The Planet Of The Humans which is in the same vein as It Came From The Swamp I guess, and alongside it will surely become a fan favourite at gigs.
On an album full of ‘stonking good R&B songs’ it ain’t been easy choosing a single Favourite track, as just about everything has its merits; but two very different songs in the middle stick out like sore thumbs; Bomb Factory is unlike anything I’ve heard from Bloater before. Intense again and his use of metaphor is stupendous; and as for his guitar playing and thumping bass lines are exemplary and much deserving of a wide audience courtesy national radio.

This is followed by the dark and dangerous Banging My Head Against The Wall, which juxtaposes his gruff vocals alongside some of the slinkiest guitar playing he’s ever put on vinyl IMHO.

Quite possibly this is another song where Bloater sticks two fingers up to the music industry; but I’m sure many listeners will translate it be a very personal song about depression and/or anxiety that’s brought on by the world around us.

If I’m totally honest, I was initially drawn to this song by the title alone and played it three times on its own before I got stuck into the album itself; and while it’s not as ‘radio friendly’ as a lot of other songs here, it’s something that I’m going to drawn back to time and time again as it taps into my own ‘dark feelings’ in a way that frightens me!

Big Boy is back and after such a long gap, a much better bundle of articulate and thought provoking songs than I ever would have expected from an English Bluesman ensconced in SW France … but it certainly is right up there with his very best in a long and successful career.