Matt Hutchinson’s got the blues. The modern blues, that is. He’s spent a large part of his life trailing his missionary mother around the world. He’s been homeless, lived in a car in Los Angeles while studying drama and hitchhiked solo to some far ends. With his band, Whisky Go Go’s, he’ll tell you all about it – with a voice that could stand in for Kings of Leon’s Caleb Followill in an instant.

Recorded in an attic in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick, Proud Tails To Them Of Us treads the well beaten path of the southern rock/Chicago blues style of early Stones – when they were still working off Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters songs. With titles like ‘Kentucky Blues’ and ‘Home Chicago’, this could all fall far short of credible for a Victorian four-piece in their twenties to be attempting – and believe me, there’s not an ounce of Australiana to be found here – but strangely enough it doesn’t. It’s saved by Hutchinson’s empirical knowledge and the vocal style he so cunningly deploys. Still, forty years of experience hasn’t afforded Whiskey Go Go’s the motivation to break new ground.

The tunes regularly work themselves into a stomp, pushed along by Hutchinson’s acoustic guitar and vocal way up in the mix; the bass and drums hidden back where they hardly matter. Midway though you get the feeling they’re working off a rather simple blueprint here – one that they stubbornly never break free from. By the time ‘Starry Night’ tumbles around, it’s nigh on impossible to ignore the Kings of Leon parallel, and if you like that band, why would you settle for anything less?

by Troy D Colvin