Chicken Diamond
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
Beast Records
CD/LP
Chicken Diamond is a one man band hailing from France, his last two albums have been wonderful collections of insane distorted blues, with ‘The Night Has A Thousand Eyes’ he has stepped away from pure blues and got even better. Fighting Boredom’s Adrian Bloxham has been listening…
The sun’s shining in through a filthy, broken pane of glass, the curtain ripped down decades ago, the empty whisky bottle is lying next to me in bed and something evil is squirming in my brain. The sound is relentless, someone is pounding on my head and from the far side of the room a French accent greets me as the music starts.
Chicken Diamond is the French lunatic that has already given us two albums of terrifying primal blues that sound like he is backed by the lost lords of rock’n’roll. This record takes the music away from that and creates something even more compelling. His vocal changes too, it’s not just that gargling gravel and petrol growl. He sings and even croons on ‘Slow Wave Sleep’. The music has moved forward too, oh the blues are still there, and, trust me, they are just as harsh and demented as before. But there’s more.
The album starts with what sounds like a demonic gypsy dance, ‘Cursed Blood’ sounding like the Pogues after they’ve escaped from Hell or a ditty a demon would sing as he works. Wild, loose and very dangerous. ‘Speed Demon’ is a blisteringly fast Rock’n’Roll attack and ‘Slow Wave Sleep’ has a soft, dark, lust soaked feel. This change doesn’t detract from the power of this music, and I will never be convinced that there isn’t some extra power behind those notes, how can one man make something so powerful?
Just past halfway through the album I am struck dumb, Chicken Diamond is covering the Gun Club and holding his own, ‘Ghost on the Highway’ is astounding and I’m pretty sure that Jeffrey Lee Pierce is howling along.
The Blues close the album, ‘I Could Have Done So Much Better’ is an unrelenting amphetamine paranoid rant and ‘I Feel So Good’ takes the music all the way back to the Delta, the vocal starting less gravely but upbeat and happy which slowly slips into more than a hint of manic madness, the edge creeps back in again, even more frightening than before.
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes is another step along Chicken Diamond’s path of mania and distortion, it’s an album that will terrify you but that isn’t altogether a bad thing is it?
Chicken Diamond’s website is chickendiamond.com, he is on Facebook and you can buy the record from Bandcamp.
All words by Adrian Bloxham.
