The Black Tones' Cobain & Cornbread

There's little to prepare you for the stripped-down, raw blues rock on The Black Tones' debut full-length album, Cobain & Cornbread. It comes out of nowhere, unapologetic, in your face. This Seattle-based duo--twin siblings Eva (lead singer, guitar) and Cedric Walker (drums)--came up with the name of their new album based upon their response to the question "What does your band sound like?" Eva explains it like this: “It sort of creates this offspring of rebellion and soul. We eat gumbo in our flannel shirts, and we eat red beans and rice while head-banging!”

Eva and Cedric consider it blues-punk, which seems apt. The name of the band follows that minimalist guitar-and-drums aesthetic explored by The White Stripes and The Black Keys, but this music is wildly original in the way it crosses so many borders. Eva's voice has the same full-throttled passion that you hear in gospel singers, which comes into play during songs such as "Rivers of Jordan," but when you transfer that voice into something more edgy, like the apoplectic "Mama! There's a Spider in My Room" or "Ghetto Spaceship," it's still a perfect match. Eva also plays organ, banjo and harmonica, so she's the one tasked with mixing it up while brother Cedric keeps the beat in a loose, heavy-on-the-crash style that isn't really that far from Meg White or Patrick Carney.

Again, I don't want to make comparisons, but the three bands are compelling as sort of an equilateral triangle of roots rock, of taking things back a few decades and revisiting the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride that attracted us to the genres in the first place. There's something brutally honest about the way The Black Tones approach their sound. Their influences are impressively hip, and they can reinforce both the antisocial tendencies of punk and the troubled history of the blues in a way that clearly states their ambitions--even when they're singing songs with titles such as "Chubby and Tubby" and "Plaid Pants."

If you want to get a taste of what this music is all about, the Tones have put up plenty of clips on YouTube. But Cobain and Cornbread is hardly a studio-based distillation of that energy. This album has that majestic feel of a live performance, of something that was laid down quick and dirty, a capturing of a unique moment that might never happen again. If you live in Seattle, you might already know about the magic of the Walker Twins. If they ever come to my neck of the woods, I want to see this amazing band for myself.