Horror of it All

Those who have fallen under the spell of the Fat Possum label's brand of raw, rocking Delta blues are bound to find plenty to like in the music of Cedell Davis. That said, Davis doesn't really sound like anyone else on the label...nor any other for that matter. His angular, atonal bottleneck guitar playing and garbled vocals are bound to offend many fans of slick, contemporary urban blues, but for a raw taste of the Delta you need not look further. Although the songs and performances on The Horror of It All rank a notch below those on 1994's Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong, it's still a strong outing. Davis goes it alone with his guitar on most of the tracks; joined only by drums on one song; and drums, bass, and second guitar on another. Yet, despite the sparseness of the instrumentation, the album offers more variety than most of the contemporaneous releases on the label. Davis veers comfortably from the type of hypnotic, droning blues favored by deceased labelmate Junior Kimbrough