Young British blues lions

Reviewed July 2007

Steeped in the heavy British blues of Humble Pie and Savoy Brown, the Isle of Man's Back Door Slam blends youthful exuberance with stellar chops on its debut release.

Lead vocalist/guitarist Davy Knowles has a warm, relaxed singing style, and the songs play to that strength. Slow, meandering blues for the most part, the 11 songs on "Roll Away" are played in an Allman Brothers kind of groove – with plenty of emphasis on both Knowles' strong singing and his tasteful guitar leads and solos.

Back Door Slam is only a trio, but drummer Ross Doyle and bassist Adam Jones create a jazz-infused backbeat with enough variety and richness to sound like a much bigger rhythm section. The end result is also augmented by a very fat studio sound from producer Dave Armstrong.

With this debut, Back Door Slam presents itself as the Brit bookend to young American blues lion Derek Trucks.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).