Austin’s Black Joe Lewis has always been a bit of a sonic chameleon, but on Electric Slave, he leans hard into a fuzzy, distorted garage-blues sound that feels significantly more dangerous than his earlier "Honeybears" era work. Gone are the clean James Brown comparisons; in their place is a raw, screaming energy that sounds like soul music at 4 AM in a basement bar.
The production on this record is shrapnel-sharp. From the opening heavy riff of "Skulldiggin," it’s clear Lewis wants to blend every style available to him—punk, funk, and dirty blues. The short stabs of brass cut through the mix like tripwire, and the guitars are live and loud. What I mainly dig about Electric Slave is how spontaneous and live it really sounds. It evokes a feeling of a room full of people gettin’ down right next to the band, whiskey bottles in hand. It’s gritty, it’s angry, and it’s exactly what the modern blues scene needs.