Vargas Blues Band - Heavy city blues

Xavier Vargas is a Spanish guitarist and formed the Vargas Blues Band in 1991. Since then he's been a very busy man, not only touring constantly, but recording and releasing albums at a rate that few other bands can equal, with a new album released almost every year. He's worked with artists including Santana, Double Trouble, Jack Bruce, Devon Allman, Larry Graham, Carmine Appice, Tim Bogert, Junior Wells and Glen Hughes, and has enlisted Carmine Appice, Paul Shortino and Bobby Alexander to guest on this album. "Heavy city blues" was originally released last year in Spain and Portugal but is now getting a worldwide physical release via Off yer Rocka records.

The first bit I notice is that while the alum cover mentions the two guest vocalists, it doesnt say anywhere which tracks they do. That's fine if you're a fan of either of them as you're likely to recognise their vocals, but for other people it's a bit annoying.

So what can you expect from the album? Well despite the band being called "Vargas Blues Band", this isn't Blues - it's blues-rock, and very good Blues-rock at that. It's a great album to listen to, packed full of good-time blues-rock songs. There's some lovely guitar work with plenty of guitar solos, great vocals and great rock songs. There's even a very good cover of the song "Love hurts", originall by the Everly Brothers but covered by a number of artists including Nazareth.

It's a very good album, but I'm not sure that it's got much longevity - there's nothing here that really sticks in your memory, so while its a great good time blues rock album, it's not quite got what it takes to score top marks.

"Heavy city blues" is out now


Track listing:

1. Shake baby shake
2. Rock'n'Roll circus
3. Searching for love
4. Back to my roots
5. Love hurts
6. Hush don't cry
7. Sin city
8. Don't step over me
9. Bankers blues
10. Rolling in trance
11. Anaconda style