Nick Bollinger indulges in the black T-shirt blues of Atlanta sisters Larkin Poe.
Larkin Poe Photo: supplied
One might have expected that, nearly two decades into the 21st century, the blues would have run their course. Yet here we are with yet another take on the timeless form, and it’s one of the most irresistible I’ve heard in a long while.
Peach Photo: supplied
Larkin Poe are two sisters from Atlanta, Georgia who have built a career around their combined voices and guitars and a stack of songs, most of them first recorded by black men from Mississippi the better part of a century ago.
On Son House’s ‘John The Revelator’ Megan Lovell plays lead while sister Rebecca sings and holds down the rhythm with what sounds like a church-house full of handclappers supplying the backbeat. If their approach is ultimately closer to the White Stripes or ZZ Top than Son House, the fact that House’s old sermon translates at all shows both the resilience of the music and the Lovells’ ability to put it across.
Though still in their twenties, the pair seem to have arrived at the blues by a circuitous route, which started as far back as pre-school with a training in classical music and went on to a family bluegrass band involving a third sister. Even then, they couldn’t be trusted not to whip out the occasional Hendrix song on their mandolins and fiddles.
But for the past five years they have been calling themselves Larkin Poe (named after an ancient ancestor who in turn was, apparently a distant relative of Edgar Allan Poe) and focusing their technique on guitars and blues material, which they treat to dark gothic rock treatments.
Their original songs are still bluesy, but lean even further in the direction of black-T-shirt rock. They turn the bogan switch up to full for ‘Wanted Woman’, and yet there’s still enough of the Lovells’ refined technique on display throughout this record to silence anyone who would simply write them off as hillbilly hoons.
And they are prolific. As Larkin Poe they have made three albums, of which Peach is the most fully-formed, but you’ll also find plenty of clips on You Tube where you can hear them tackle everything from AC/DC’s ‘Highway To Hell’ to Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’, smearing them all with their distinctive southern sauce.
Peach is available on Tricki-Woo
