Music Review: Jimbo Mathus, Blue Healer

By Melissa Bratcher

“Well bless my soul and hush my mouth.” With the first words on Blue Healer, you know that Jimbo Mathus’s latest is going to be more of the gritty, swampy Southern Rock that is his stock in trade. Drawing from a lifetime in the South, Jimbo Mathus has created his manifesto with Blue Healer. It’s a concept album that eschews the parts of concept albums that make them so annoying, and instead is filled to the brim with excellent hooks, fine songwriting, and and a layer of honesty that is deeply authentic.

Here’s the thing: when Jimbo Mathus sings, I believe whatever it is that he sings. He’s got a raw truth to his voice that is inimitable. In his raspy yawp, he tells the truth.

The tracks on Blue Healer encompass a variety of styles, and Mathus handles each genre with an enviable ease. The opener, “Shoot Out The Lights,” is a raucous, shambolic stomper that fades into the confessional (and witty) “Mama Please.” The narrator here runs down his rather vice-ridden choices, and Mathus’s performance is charming and loose.

Blue Healer is rooted in the Deep South. You can feel it on every track (except for “Coyote,” which is a reverb-laden, fingerpicked journey to the Southwest, which also has a hooky-as-hell chorus that begs to be sung quite loud). The South seeps into the songs, from the gospel-feeling, expansive “Sometimes I Get Worried,” in which Mr. Mathus breaks out his finest preacher voice to go with his slide guitar, to the down and dirty “Bootheel Witch.” The latter sports a massive sound that choogles along, all Southern rock boogie, with Mathus’s rapid, ragged delivery. The end of the song sounds like the end of the world.

The simple, heartfelt “Thank You” is incredibly intimate and dare I say, sweet. Delicate acoustic guitar is layered under Mathus’s raw croon and the remaining instrumentation is appropriately spare.

The quick-witted and funny “Old Earl,” about an utterly lazy man, plays out in an easy country lope that befits the subject, with crisp, strummed acoustic guitar and fine pedal steel. The ripping “Save It For The Highway” begs to be put on all your “road songs” mixes. The guitar is blistering and Mathus has the kind of voice that is uniquely suited to rock. The titular track is edgy and heavy, a swampy presence that builds to a howling force.

With Blue Healer, Jimbo Mathus has once again made an album that is true to his matchless style. The songs, individually, are wild and unrepentant, and taken as a whole make up a journey well worth taking.

Blue Healer was released on April 21 through Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum.