Oh! My Troubled Mind
Label: self-released
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Oh! My Troubled Mind
Just when you thought roots-rock was spent, along comes this local musician with an invigorating album that sweats with steely swagger and big soul. Some now know him as the guitarist for Thomas Wynn & the Believers, but this young traditionalist is a considerable force on his own. In muscular strides, the commanding gait of Beckler’s music stomps with a humid, dusty kick. His hot-blooded rock brew is sweetened with touches of digging blues (“This Mountain”), full-throated gospel (“Deliver Me”) and Southern twang (“Oh! My Troubled Mind,” “Freedom”). The record has a heat that makes it believable, a rare thing nowadays with all the cheap blues jockeys flooding the bar circuit. With feeling, heft and a triumphant sense of tune (“Cold Cold Rain”), his music has plenty of mainstream appeal, but it’s way gutsier than much-ballyhooed but way overrated artists like Rocco Deluca. Turns out it is possible to do without having to trade in your testicles.
This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2007.