There's something stupidly redundant about dubbing a record "blues-based rock and roll," given rock's excruciatingly well-documented rural roots. Occasionally, though, a contemporary rock outfit will faithfully resurrect not just the now-ubiquitous 12-bar noodle, but also the coy, shifty-eyed spirit of the original blues, simultaneously employing skeleton cover art, cornbread mantras, and goofily enigmatic aliases.
The Black-Eyed Snakes, the unlikely side project of Low's Alan Sparhawk, have wisely shied away from the puttering, voodoo blues schtick that made their 2001 debut, It's the Black-Eyed Snakes, play like pure masquerade. The members have, however, dutifully retained their cheeky blues pseudonyms (Alan Sparhawk continues to appear as "Chicken-Bone George"), and a biography that reads like bad Toni Morrison ("OK, these ain't your mother and daddys Black-Eyed Snakes. Best tell everyone: things changed.") But Rise Up! is, at least sonically, a considerably less gimmicky effort than its predecessor, far more concerned with capturing the unquestionable ecstasy of riffing than with showcasing quasi-ironic posturing.
Ultimately, Rise Up! transgresses, rather than regurgitates, knee-jerk blues formula; The Black-Eyed Snakes' brand of "blues" is just as informed by the energy and ethos of punk and garage rock as it is by the infamous Delta triumvirate of God/whiskey/women. And while blues-meets-punk is exceptionally well-tread ground in 2003 (see: Jon Spencer, Black Keys, etc.), the Snakes' brew tends to skew a bit dirtier, incorporating a backwards folk ambiance that's less reminiscent of The White Stripes than Califone: check "Soggy" Tim Rutili manning the slide on three tracks, or notice how the deft maraca opening of "Hillside Stomp" makes you think Brian Deck is lurking in the back of the room.
There's also the issue of Sparhawk's alter-ego: If the experience of listening to Low approximates the aching sublimity of freezing to death, spinning the Black-Eyed Snakes is akin to bursting into flame. Sparhawk's vocals-- so peaceably docile when tumbling along with Low-- are painfully distorted here, and their new, dressed-up gurgle is deliberately misleading, much like Sparhawk's nickname; Sparhawk seems intent on keeping his respective projects wholly distinct (coyly cloaking both his real name and his real pipes), preemptively striking out at anyone eager to accuse him of wild Dr. Jeckylisms. Consequently, the Black-Eyed Snakes and Low remain superficially incomparable. Still, both employ an impressive sense of emancipation, of classic build-and-release structure, always see-sawing between the unlistenable and the sublime.
"Rise Up!" opens the record with an exclamation-pointed promise of insurgence, and promptly offers an appropriate soundtrack: unpolished, heavily distorted, and teeth-gnashing fierce, the track boasts plenty of lustful guitar solos and thick-headed bass drum pumping. "Cornbread" tumbles from uncontrolled, freewheeling riffs into a drunken "Devil's in the cornbread, cornbread" breakdown, complete with handclaps and multi-voiced chanting, while a cover of "Bo Diddley" references its namesake in both riff and force (Sparhawk's hollers of "Hey Bo Diddley/ Said hey, Bo Biddley!" form an oddly convincing incantations), eventually easing in some perfectly unexpected congas.
The Black-Eyed Snakes' version of the blues isn't always especially credible, but their evocation can still be transcendent: there are flashes of red on Rise Up! that are just fiery enough to manipulate listeners into instantly inking their own deals with the devil, even if it's just for the thrill of the burn.
