Miss Quincy
Album: Like The Devil Does
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.missquincy.net

It's just over a year since I reviewed this sassy yet enigmatic lady's debut CD Your Mama Don't Like Me, but here she is bouncing back with a brand new collection of rough-hewn, moody and often distinctly swampy blues-inspired music that crawls its sinuous way straight into your soul.

The difference from that debut record is that this time there's more of a definite live-off-the-floor band feel to the proceedings, happily without subsuming Miss Q's feisty character. The "band"' is theoretically her new touring outfit The Showdown, which comprises Shari Rae (upright bass) and Holly Magnus (drums), but on this recording Thom Moon's the drummer and the basic three-piece is augmented as appropriate by key contributions from producer Tim Williams (lap steel, dobro, tenor banjo, slide), also Allistair Elliott (trumpet), Jonathan Lewis (fiddle), Ron Casat (Hammond, piano), Tyler Toews (electric guitar) and Alyssa Jean Gardner (backing vocals).

But before you start to expecting a whole album of raw, down-and-dirty juke-joint blues, you'll need to take a breather after track 3 and get into a series of different grooves as the instrumental climate changes with the mood of the songs - here we encounter the steamily suggestive Nina Simone cover (and the disc's only non-original) I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl, perhaps a little over-the-top but what a trumpet solo !, the wow-factor of the ultra-energetically-fiddled Dangerous, the tender, achingly soulful slowie Til The Money Comes In, the clunkin'-banjo-fuelled drag Dawson City Line, the almost gentle closer Carmen and the almost delicate barroom-upright-bedecked tale of Silent Movie.

Just occasionally it's possible to find the redoubtable Miss Q's no-nonsense delivery and relentlessly direct persona a little wearing, so when the lipstick smears and she shows a softer, more vulnerable side (as on Til The Money Comes In), it can be quite refreshing. But Like The Devil Does is still a superb set, whose surprising diversity delights more than you might expect from the initial label, and Josie Peck's alter-ego proves deliciously flirtatious and knowingly confident as ever - and while her vocal prowess is still outstanding, her own brilliantly idiomatic guitar work is almost worth the price of admission alone.

David Kidman