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Angelique Francis—Not Defeated—Independent

Angelique Francis is a singer and multi-instrumentalist

from Ottawa, she’s already won lots of Canadian blues
awards and after starting young was playing on the same
bills as Buddy Guy, Shemekia Copeland and Gary Clark

Jr. by the age of 14. The album starts with ‘Sugarcane
Jukebox’ a sexy strut with Angelique’s vocals and
harmonica, ‘Escape’ features wonderful blues lead guitar

from Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram which perfectly
complements Angelique’s wonderful vocals and Eric
Gales drops by to add his guitar to ‘Train Coming’, again he plays very well but he’s

perfectly matched by the rest of the track. This is an excellent album, it’s definitely
blues but with contemporary accents and it is also very accessible with lots of variety.
As well as singing Angelique plays bass, guitar, keyboards and harmonica and is

joined by her sisters who make up a brass section, her father on drums and Dave
Williamson (electric guitar). Definitely one to check out for an imaginative modern
twist on the blues.

Graham Harrison

The Lowdown Saints—Hard Player—Independent

The Lowdown Saints are a Swedish blues band with the
tremendous harp playing of Gustav Almstedt upfront
and this album is compiled from tracks recorded during

the last four years. As well as Almstedt the band are
Tommy Moberg (drums, lead vocals), Hannes Mellberg
and Felix Mathiessen (guitars) and Urban Hed (bass).

Apart from one cover of Big Walter Horton’s ‘Need My
Baby’ the songs here are all originals, we blast off with
‘Good Stuff Boogie’ a powerful rocker, ‘Pusherman’ is a

funky blues with nice lead guitar and ‘It Takes 2 To Play the Game’ has a Bo Diddley
groove. ‘Evertina’ is a catchy, melodic harp-driven song with additional piano (Daniel
Karlsson), ‘Got No Time for Love’ is a guitar boogie and ‘Help Me Lord’ again benefits

from boogie piano from Karlsson. ‘Baby Please Come Home’ is a jump blues and we
also get a bonus version of ‘Got No Time for Love’ this time with added harp. The
Lowdown Saints are perhaps most like early Fabulous Thunderbirds and you can

imagine them going down really well at festivals.

Graham Harrison