Self release [Release date 03.12.20]

Mary Stokes Band’s ‘Comin’ Home’ is for the most part a live off the floor ‘warts and all’ album culled from 2 rehearsals with a couple of additional studio cuts.

Mary Stokes is an enduring figure on the Irish blues scene and the vivacious vocalist leads a well schooled Chicago blues influenced band through a mixture of self penned material and covers.

And while she attacks the material with gusto, this is very much a band effort reflected in a succession of guitar and harp-led songs, and in the case of the reprised ‘Mattie Won’t Write’, guitar and blues harp double lines.

It’s an album that smoulders, flickers, sometimes deceives, but ultimately explodes on a ripping cover of Bo Diddley’s ‘Story of Bo Diddley and the booming self-penned ‘Long Way From Home’, both of which are a resounding triumph.

The fact that they are both sandwiched between a rather redundant version of Bessie Smith’s ‘At The Christmas Ball’, points to the one major weakness of an otherwise enjoyable album, which is the paucity of memorable material and a somewhat obvious choice of covers.

Then again, given that this recording was mostly taken from a couple of rehearsals we should possibly reserve judgement until the next studio album.

‘Comin’ Home’ is a well played and almost reverential trip through a Chicago blues styled set list with occasional country blues flourishes.

The real discovery here is the guitar playing of Sarah Michelle. While the harp playing Brian Palm and pianist Dermot Stokes provide the building blocks, Michelle injects the songs with real vitality through old school rhythm guitar playing, and when the song demands it some contrasting blistering solos.

Mary Stokes leads from the front with a passionate vocal on the opening title track alongside Michelle’s first fiery toned solo. The guitarist uses a Lesley effect while weaving her way through a track on which Chris Byrne’s bass is curiously mixed down.

The band slips into the harp-led country blues feel of ‘Moonshine’ on which they build up some momentum on the back of Brian Palm’s flighty harp solo .

Sarah Michelle’s locked in rhythm guitar builds into a full flown solo which she resolves either side of Stokes’s gritty vocals and some cleverly doubled up vocals.

The band has two stabs at the spacious, but muscular ‘Mattie Won’t Write’, the former being infused with harp from the start, while the latter is a shorter version with additional counterbalanced vocals which gives the song extra warmth and almost a West coast feel.

The album really kicks in on a mellifluous harp-led cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Baby How Long’ as the band stretches out and Stokes really finds her voice.

It’s subtly interwoven with lovely harp and piano, glued together by drummer Robbie Barrett’s imperious drive and rounded off by a sinewy solo from Michelle in a lovely snapshot of what the band do so well.

Unfortunately they struggle to maintain that momentum on Billy Holiday’s ‘Fine And Mellow’ as Stokes doesn’t quite have the emotional gravitas in her phrasing to make it her own, while the riff-led shuffle ‘Mola Di Bari’ – a homage to the South Eastern city of Bari sung in Italian – is a pleasant diversion with a stinging guitar solo, rather than anything essential.

They get back on track with punchy riff-led version of Little Walter’s ‘Can’t Hold On Much Longer’. Sarah’s rhythm guitar playing again injects the song with real purpose and energy, while Stokes delivers her line with gusto.

She recorded Sonny Boy Williamson 11 ’s ‘Help Me’ way back in ’89 on a limited release cassette and here it’s presented as a duet with State Lights vocalist Shobsy O’Brien. It brings a nice sense of contrast and nuanced dynamics and sparks guitarist Michelle into a gutsy solo.

Stokes also makes a good fist of Van Morrison’s ‘Roll With The Punches’, which does indeed roll with some fine slide guitar, harp and piano trills.

So far so good, and any semblance of claustrophobic restraint is blown out the water on the firebrand ‘Story Of Bo Diddley’.

Sarah Michelle’s caustic guitar elicits a whoop from Stokes, on a track predicated on a Bo Diddley beat with lashing of wailing harp and a powerhouse rhythm section, as Stokes belts out her lines alongside Michelle on bv’s.

The closing ‘Long Way From Home’ is equally good , being nothing less than a smoking band who sound as if they have bided their time for the right track on which to cut loose.

Stokes belts out her lines over the kind of heavy duty shuffle that might have benefited the album as a whole if it had been included earlier in the set.

No matter, ‘Comin’ Home’ is a limited release, solid blues album which belatedly reveals just what the band is all about. ***½

Review by Pete Feenstra

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THE PLAGUE What Else Can I Do (FiXT)
STAR CIRCUS Turn The Tide (indie)
DEFENCES Breathe It In (Long Branch Records)

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09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
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