Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The real of our lives is in danger of being forced out by the damage and instability sought by those that practise chaos; normally shrouded in suits and flattering salaries, as they offer sounds that can’t be heard, as they sign off on a lie of art which insults rather than edifies.
The Real Gone kids to whom expressions are found in the beauty of emotional truth are forever being told they have to adhere to a fashion that is neither desirable, nor satisfying; and those suits, they don’t care because they will always find one to whom the nation will be told to swoon at for the sake of publicity and fortune.
We, as listeners, need to see through the gossamer strands of the advertiser’s and corporations needful things and take up arms in the favour of those to whom the instrument is not just a reflection of the latest fashion, but a server of the people, to sooth when times are tough, to agitate when the need arises to rebel…and in Ally Venable, that player, the minstrel of Texas Blues is calling out with drive and fierce passion in her latest album, Real Gone.
Since the release of No Glass Shoes in 2016. Ally Venable has become one of the go-to musicians of the post Millenium feel for the genre, in a time of revival, such that Blues has had since its near death as the old century was drawing its final breaths, the young and the spirited choose their council wisely, and few are as wise as Ally Venable.
Real Gone is consummate, it is full of flavour and dynamic introspection, Ally Venable does not hide away behind other musician’s, nor is she afraid of being honest in a period beset with liars and their falsehoods.
Across tracks such as Justifyin’ Broken And Blue, Any Fool Should Know, Kick Your Ass, Hold My Ground, and the album title track of Real Gone , Ally Venable sings and plays as though, quite rightly, Blues is all that matters outside of family, it is the epitome of a truth she holds dear, and friends, loved ones and her fans are the catalyst for that emotion she lets fly into the face of the reckless and the damned with a smile etched and inked directly onto the heart.
From her debut E.P., Wise Man, Ally Venable has been part of this 21st Century Blues canon, a sound of aggression and the pulse of pure hearted delivery…Real Gone is another step on the road, and she walks it with head held high and songs of absolute groove in her soul.
Ally Venable releases Real Gone on March 24th via Ruf Records.
Ian D. Hall