THE GUARDIAN/THE OBSERVER review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”

Two Of Everything
Kitty Empire
The Observer, Saturday 30 July 2011

Under the alias Oliver Henry, Brian Olive cut his chops in bands such as the Soledad Brothers and the Greenhornes: retro-leaning, attitudinal outfits who came to some prominence in the slipstream of the White Stripes. Next up are sax parts on Dr John’s next album, but in the meantime Olive’s second solo offering lends a pleasingly spacey, psychedelic edge to vintage sounds, with sympathetic production provided by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. You could argue retro soul and R&B are two of the decade’s hegemonic sounds, but there’s no vamping here. Rather, songs such as “Go On Easy” glide by in an opiated glaze, while “Strange Attracter” makes unexpectedly groovy use of the bagpipes.

POPMATTERS 8/10 review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”

Two Of Everything
POPMATTERS
Brian Olive: Two of Everything
By Alan Brown 11 July 2011

Almost three years have passed since Brian Olive emerged from the vault of the Cincinnati pawn-shop-turned-recording-studio he helped build clutching his excellent full-length solo debut. Yet it appears the ex-Soledad Brother hasn’t just been busy touring and helping out friends—most recently as guest player on label-mate T-Model Ford’s album Taledragger—but has also been behind the console developing his knob-twiddling skills. Two of Everything is as complex as it is catchy. Adventurous arrangements employ gauzy synthesizers, flutes, punchy Muscle Shoals-style sax and, in one exemplary case on “Strange Attractor”, what sounds like bagpipes. Olive creates atmospheric layers of sound dappled in splashes of dreamy psych-pop sunshine that, on occasion, bring to mind the top-down grooves of ‘60s Chicago outfit the Buckinghams. Soulful glam-orized R&B stomp is still to be heard on songs such as opener “Left Side Rock” and “Back Sliding Soul”, it’s just tempered with a laid-back vibe that finds Olive mellowing down easy.

A-LINE review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”

Two Of Everything
A-LINE MAGAZINE
by Taryn Tegarden 21.05.2011

I’m ready for summer, and thanks to Brian Olive there’s a soundtrack for the season.

The former Greenhornes and Soledad Brothers member has followed up his 2009 self-titled solo debut with Two of Everything (out June 7). Recorded at the Diamonds Building (right here in Cincinnati) with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, there are clear signs of the garage/blues sound you could come to expect from Olive and Auerbach’s past recordings. But with that is the welcome influence of Memphis soul, New Orleans funk and even a nod to ‘60s girl groups with female backing vocals on a handful of tracks. The dreamy, wailing voices are put up against fuzzy synthesizers, woodwinds and brass. Two of Everything should be played over the loud-speakers at pool parties, cookouts, and—here’s hoping—a summer celebratory crawfish boil. (Invite me, please. I’ve never been to one.)

POPMATTERS review of T MODEL FORD & Gravelroad “Taledragger”

Taledragger
POPMATTERS
T-Model Ford and Gravelroad: Taledragger
By Alan Brown 21 April 2011

T-Model Ford is making up for lost time. Twelve months after his excellent Alive Records debut The Ladies Man, the 90-something bluesman from the North Mississippi hill country is back with a vengeance. And this time he’s not alone. Gravelroad have been backing the Taledragger, intermittently, live and on record—including sitting in on the afternoon jam session that produced last year’s completely acoustic LP—,ever since they walked out behind him on stage at Minneapolis’ Deep Blues Festival in 2008.

The Seattle band play what they like to call “dark blues”, and when Ford joins them, the crossroads at midnight is never far from your mind. On superb retellings of blues staples like “Big Legged Woman” and closer “Little Red Rooster”, the fuzzy, thick-as-molasses, reverb-fueled blues-rock-chug of the trio menacingly oozes behind Ford’s blacker-than-blue cracked growl.

Over the course of the eight songs, Gravelroad’s guitarist Stefan Zillioux, bass player Jon “Kirby” Newman, and drummer Marty Reinsel (he also provides backing rhythms and helps out generally on the bluesman’s solo tours) are joined by two of the record’s producers, former Soledad Brother Brian Olive (sax, keys and guitar) and Outrageous Cherry frontman Mathew Smith (guitars, B3 and fuzz bass), alongside slide guitarist Mike Weinel in backing Ford. Olive and Smith bring a subtle ‘60s pop and soul-jazz groove to the music that counterpoints perfectly with Ford and the band’s sinewy juke-joint blues.

“Comin’ Back Home” and its follow-up number “Someone’s Knocking on My Door” are perfect examples. Both slow churning blues songs are punctuated by bleating baritone sax—there’s also one hell of a sax solo on the outro of the former—, and underscored by shimmering Hammond B3 that makes the numbers weep and growl with tension while Ford howls at the killing moon. The latter track beefs up the action with some scything electric guitar—a great way to ease you into the next track, a monolithic reworking of Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years” where Ford’s muddied Delta blues style transmutes via surges of wah-wah guitar, vocal echo, and nacroleptic drumming into the hypnotic stoner psych-blues territory of bands past and present, such as Cream, the glorious Wooden Ships, and their offshoot Moon Duo.

Elsewhere, Muddy Waters’s “Two Trains Coming” is retold in an epic seven minutes as “Same Old Train”, with Olive providing barrelhouse piano accompaniment to salacious electric blues guitar. Ford’s languorous drawl fittingly inhabits original number “I Worn My Body for So Long” as gentle slide guitar helps carry the bluesman’s fragile voice through to the close of an acoustic number that could very easily be an out-take from the Ladies Man sessions, but fits perfectly into the plugged-in atmospherics here.

With a little help from his friends, T-Model Ford has once again walked into the studio and bettered himself. The only thing missing is these guys cutting loose on another version of his signature tune “Chicken Head Man”.