Henrik Freischlader Trio – Openness – 2016

Openness is a Blues- or Bluesrock album by the German band Henrik Freischlader Trio. If I’m not mistaken this is a project aside from Henrik Freischlader’s other band – Henrik Freischlader Band. I think he also made albums without the band, using only his own name as a solo artist. Apparently, a trio is enough to make quite a big blues sound. Of course, there’s not a lot of instruments, like brass and such things. There is a pretty cooked-down sound with Guitar, Bass, and drums. And Vocals of course. I like this a lot.

I have been searching for a modern blues artist that I like for quite a while. You know, when you’re stuck with the Kings; Albert, BB, Freddie, and Johnny Winter, you need something younger and someone still able to produce competent music. I think I found that with Henrik Freischlader. There’s always Joe Bonamassa you say? Yeah, kind of. But that’s not really blues most of the time. Not in my ears at least. Joe Bonamassa seems to lean more toward the soul.

And there are soul influences on Openness too, but mostly it’s blues. Blues halfback and driven. It’s hard to describe the feeling. I can’t wait to explore this multi-instrumental guy, and his band(s) further. It was a long time since I was so excited about finding blues.