Orb Mellon & Steve D’Agostino reviewed

Orb Mellon, Moan (V-Hold Records, orbmellon.com). Recorded under his Orb Mellon alias, multi-instrumentalist and singer Mike Malone has subtitled his second album, “Thesaurus of Post-Modern Blues.” If to you that phrase calls to mind a stiff, clinical grad-level musicology project — well, it’s absolutely not that. If that phrase simply suggests Malone is going to veer far from straight 12-bar — hey, that’s more like it. The songs are only infrequently in line with trad blues in their structures and instrumentation. Acoustic slide guitar is the main instrument, but the pounding drums and bursts of electric guitar feedback make it sound as though Malone’s hijacked an angry young indie rock band to back him up. These rocked-up swells and Malone’s often aggressive strumming and sliding underline the tension in these songs. And no matter how he cloaks the arrangements, his execution is thoroughly blues — if you take “blues” to mean dangerous, warty, imperfect, horny and emotionally naked. In short, he doesn’t need the drawl he affects to make it clear he’s mastered that scary, sad longing of the blues.

—Brian LaRue
Orb Mellon plays March 2 at Al’s Cookout in Brookfield.

Steve D’Agostino, A Chapter from the Great American Songbook (stevedagostino.com). Steve D’Agostino is a lounge singer who, I would bet an impressive sum of money, has at least one framed picture of Frank Sinatra hanging in his home. On this disc, he flips the fake book open to worn pages, with songs like “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You Make Me Feel so Young” and “Cheek to Cheek,” yielding the expected results — a pleasant, laid-back listening experience with no surprises. He takes on some of the phrasing and inflections of the artists who recorded popular versions of the songs. “Beyond the Sea,” for example, has many nods to the Bobby Darin version, albeit with a more compact band (which swings expertly). This record is more an effort to rehash existing takes on classic songs, which is a tall order for a listener since the ingredients of the most popular versions were all executed so perfectly the first time around and are imbedded in our heads as such. Even under such a magnifying glass D’Agostino manages to hold his own, which is an accomplishment in its own right.

—Mike Sembos

Steve D’Agostino plays Feb. 26 at Bin 100 in Milford and Feb. 27 at the Twisted Vine in Derby.

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