Dana Fuchs
Album: Bliss Avenue
Label: RUF
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.danafuchs.com/

Raised in Florida on a musical diet that included her older siblings love of the rock gods and parents who adored the likes of Hank Willams and Ray Charles, it was always clear that Dana Fuchs was going to find some sort of satisfaction via music, the question more a case of what. The answer surprisingly was blues, cemented by visits to blues clubs on Manhattan's Lower East Side, when she relocated to New York.

"Bliss Avenue" is Dana's third album, following on the heels of "Love To Beg" released back in 2011. It's also the album that marks the transition, at least as far as the narrative is concerned, from the wild excess of youth into songs that have been honed by living life, well almost.

Through "Bliss Avenue", Fuchs continues to deliver electric blues, with swirling Hammond and great guitar riffs, all of which give deference to her amazing gospel fuelled voice. Make no mistake, this is an album that has a streak of soul that runs through it that could part the red sea, ok a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

Lyrically this album is a step forward for Dana, I was worried that she was going to fall into the blues chick cliché which can start feeling a bit samey after a while. Thankfully, She seems to have found a more reflectful vein, one that shows she really has the ability to look into dark places and shine a bright light into them, the result is that "Bliss Avenue" is an album that you feel a part of rather than just listening to.

This being electric blues, there are naturally the powerful love songs, that strut and sway with an arrogance that only a supremely confident musician seems to be able to pull off, but it's now part of a wider landscape and that gives the album real depth and which makes "Bliss Avenue" and Dana Fuchs so easy to recommend.

Neil King