WHITE LIGHT CEMETERY – Careful What You Wish For

WHITE LIGHT CEMETERY RAISE THE DEAD IN LOUSIANA

From Lafayette, Louisiana, the center of Cajun and Creole culture in the US, comes a new band to the Decibel Geeks – White Light Cemetery. Together for 6 years now, Careful What You Wish For is the second full-length album on Ripple Records from (in their words) “a bluesy amalgamation of influences like Lynyrd Sknyrd, Pantera, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Crowbar, and Deep Purple.” Crowbar? Anyway, with a description like that, I had to check them out.

The album opens with a deep bassline intro and spooky guitar over the top, and then proceeds to kick ass. “Misery Loves Company”, at over 6 minutes long is an unusual album opener, but it’s got a great groove and shows off the band’s strengths right from the start. Ryan Robin‘s and Shea Barden‘s guitars complement Robin‘s voice perfectly, as they keep the sound low and gruff. Tara Miller‘s bass playing, heard right from the first note is stellar. In fact they use that trick again on the very Sabbath sounding intro to “Looking Out (for Number One)”. Thomas Colley, as “angry tubthumper,” has the drums holding everything together, with great fills and loud and noisy crashes at all the right moments.

The album is unusual in its song lineup, too. With three songs over 6 minutes and two more over 5 minutes, they have time to really develop those basslines into great songs. “Looking Out”, for example, starts with that brooding intro, then has a Skynyrd guitar line in the verses, and vocals that sound somewhere in between. The same is true of “Misery”, and “Waiting” just blisters all the way through. I guess if I could ask for an improvement, it would be more freestyle guitar solos, especially in the long tunes. “Bullet to Erase”, not my favorite song and a disappointing finale, nevertheless has a great solo that’s worth waiting for.

The shorter songs, “Sky River” and especially “On a Dime”, for example have a more southern, bluesy feel to them. To be fair, this kind of blues-influenced music has always been right up my alley. But I think White Light Cemetery has put out one of the best albums early into 2017. I’m looking forward to giving it a lot of airplay, and expect I’ll see it on a list or two at the end of the year.

Track List

Misery Loves Company
Sky River
Looking Out (For Number One)
On a Dime
Quit Work, Make Music
Better Days
Waiting
Bullet to Erase

Buy Careful What You Wish For on Amazon