Courtnay and the Unholy Reverie: Mercy (digital outlets)

Every now and again when Elsewhere discovers an album which has been out there for a little while – up to a month maybe – we review it as ONE WE MISSED.

Perhaps we also need to do something similar about those we get to very early, like singer/songwriter and blistering guitarist Courtnay Lowe out of Taranaki.

She first came to our attention in March on the album Hold My Gun by Mons Whaler (“like a box of firecrackers” we said) and her powerhouse singing and searing blues guitar immediately impressed.

Then we learned almost immediately that she had her own band the Unholy Reverie whose debut single Mercy was so strong that we invited her to answer an Elsewhere questionnaire.

Since then there have been a couple more singles and now the Mercy EP which with seven songs (plus a radio edit) and at more than half an hour sounds like an album for our purposes.

So we bring Courtnay and her band to attention again.

The five minute opener Vulture, Vulture! (which gets the 3.50 edit at the end) is a chunk of filthy, swampy blues-rock where she unleashes her guitar skills but keeps her vocal strength on the leash until the midpoint.The final 90 seconds is a whirlpool of gritty and paint-peeling guitar, hard riffing and Lowe announcing herself with the same kind of power of a Joplin or Beth Hart.

Vulture, Vulture! (radio edit)

 

She's a blues gal from soul deep and that comes through on the throb of the take-no-prisoners Mercy.

Elsewhere she pulls out acoustic guitar for the more restrained Lost at Sea which confirms the breadth of her playing and singing, and on the carefully measured The Great Wave she lets the personal and poetic mingle on a slow building ballad about the loss of her father: “Today I watched my favourite tree fall . . . the night I watched him fall is the night I lost it all”.

The Great Wave

 

Leave Out the Rest is a stomping, almost glam-cum-swamp rock blues and on Graves she again reins herself in on a moody piece (“got me carrying your cross now”) but also confirming that her range and delivery puts her among the best singers we have.

If there's a problem she faces it's that this kind of music doesn't appeal to a lot of taste-makers, cool record store people and most radio programmers.

It's ironic then that the recent, raw Jack White album No Name is being acclaimed as one his best, and some of this would sit right alongside it.

I have no doubt Courtnay and the Unholy Reverie would be terrifyingly good live, but until they come to a venue near you check out this collection: it is diverse but consistently impressive, not just for her singing and playing but her lyrical ability.

She doesn't talk down to you or keep it simple when she has something deeper to say.

We're telling you again.

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You can hear this album at Spotify here

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The Mercy launch shows 

Friday 29 November – The Most FM, Taranaki

Saturday 30 November – Ding Dong Lounge, Auckland

With special guests Animalhead + Silcrow