blackinkyswells

Plenty of ink has been spilt over the increasing loudness of modern records. Compressed and distorted to within an inch of their lives, many of today’s albums sacrifice precious dynamic range in the fear that anything less than ear-bleeding will be ignored. Seeing these records represented as thick, slab-like waveforms in a digital sound-editing program, it’s easy to believe that future albums couldn’t possibly get any louder. Credit goes to Milwaukee blues-rock quartet The Ragadors for at least giving the seemingly impossible a shot. While it may not be wholly successful, the group’s debut LP, blackinkyswells, is fucking loud.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, both the record and the group are at their best when they embrace that volume, and leave the tried-and-true blues formulas behind. Opener and album standout “Bottom Line Babe” finds lead singer Benjamin Hall’s blown-out, Jim Morrison-infused vocals in fine form, buoyed by a satisfyingly dirty bass tone and wall-to-wall guitars. Drummer Joshua Harper’s distorted snare and hyper-sizzled cymbals shine throughout blackinkyswells’ 11 tracks, and give a needed punch to songs like “Ramblin’ On” and the sprawling closer, “Death Train.”

Elsewhere, the moody “Need Your Love Tonight” scores points for an infectious, left-field chorus with shades of late-period White Stripes, while “Ain’t Welcome Here No More” works as both a boozy, off-kilter shuffle and a straight-up rock ’n’ roll barn-burner. Tightly wound and pushed to the sonic edge, these tracks find The Ragadors’ swaggering, blues-by-way-of-Queens Of The Stone Age at its most inventive best.

Sadly, too much of album fails to go similarly off-script, and instead comes off as derivative. Both “I Got A Woman” and “Cold Blooded Woman” suffer from their adherence to the hoary “I woke up this morning,” 12-bar songwriting scheme, while the otherwise original “Cold Night” is sunk by wanky, clichéd lead guitar work. Only when The Ragadors ditch the standard blues playbook does blackinkyswells live up to its noisy expectations.

The Ragadors celebrate the release of blackinkyswells Friday at Club Garibaldi.