Audio By Carbonatix
There’s something to be said for consistency — at least that’s what you take away from Scott H. Biram’s song “Still Drunk, Still Crazy, Still Blue,” off his 2009 record Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever. The character falls within Biram’s general specialty of wandering wastrels, truck-driving whiskey-drinkers, and lost souls rootless as tumbleweeds blowing across his ramshackle country-blues landscapes. His wiry vocals seem suited to these squirrelly fellows. Likewise the gritty guitar tones Biram fashions: part Delta thunder, part dusty backwoods ring, as he switches between the electric and acoustic. (Though the dichotomy is never so clear-cut.) Biram played in punk and bluegrass bands in the ’90s before alighting on a solo career beginning with a series of self-released discs beginning in 2000. His life/music career was nearly cut short by a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler in 2003, but he’s resilient, and was up on stage in a wheelchair a month later. Since signing to Bloodshot in 2005, he’s released three albums, including his aforementioned latest. It’s his strongest, most varied release — from the harmonica-fueled gospel blues State of the Union, “Ain’t It a Shame,” to the rockabilly-blues “I Feel So Good” and rollicking punk-grass “Judgment Day.” He’s already hit the studio again, so expect a sneak peek of the next album.
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