Larkin Poe - Bloom
(Tricky Woo Records, 2024)
Rebecca and Megan Lovell, aka Larkin Poe, have fully arrived. After bobbing around for a decade, playing their fresh if embryonic country/rock/blues/gospel inspired songs in smaller venues, the sisters have jettisoned into the big time almost overnight…after 10 years. Larkin Poe’s transition began on Blood Harmony (Tricky Woo Records, 2023), for which they won the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Bloom illustrates what the full transition sounds like, and it is impressive.
Production, maturity, and miles on the road make Bloom the breakthrough recording for the sisters. Compared to the band’s earlier seven full-length releases, Bloom achieves a gravitas considerably greater than that of the band’s earlier seven full-length releases, including Blood Harmony. Everything about Bloom is bigger: the songwriting, musicianship, engineering and production, and the sheer sound. Everyone associated with the sisters has upped their game.
“Mockingbird” opens the recording with a fat lap steel figure played over a fuzz-dense guitar arpeggio, both driven by carefully nuanced drumming. Immediately, this song is something different. Production (and engineering) keeps Rebecca Lovell’s vocals centered and even with the rest of the band’s sound. The lyrics are sledgehammer introspective, delivered with an ever-growing authority. Rebecca’s vocals have always been powerful, but she reaches deeper than ever as she plants her spear in the sand, declaring, “I am here!” The guitar and lap steel tones recall 1980s ZZ TOP.
Rebecca is fully and emotionally committed on “Easy Love Pts 1 & 2,” where it takes little imagination that she sings of her and husband Tyler Bryant, whose influence on this recording and Blood Harmony is palpable. “Pt. 1” is an assertive rocker while “Pt. 2” recalls the rhythm and blues of “Might As Well Be Me” from Blood Harmony. “Bluephoria” recalls the staccato vocal delivery of “Trouble In Mind” from 2016’s Reskinned (Tricki-Woo Records). “Nowhere Fast” is a road song, plain and simple.
“If God Is A Woman” is suitably anthemic, allowing the sister’s faith tradition to rise almost unperceptively while channelling Black Sabbath on “Pearls.” “Fool Outta Me,” “You Are The River,” and “Bloom Again” represent the direction of the band as they seek the more thoughtfully melodic. Both sisters’ chops, already beyond question, have developed well beyond their previous material. Meagan Lovell is a lap steel phenomenon. Larkin Poe has found their niche and are wasting no time consolidating their position in blues and country-based rock.
Thinking of my beautiful Dana and her love for the Lovell Sisters.