THE INSOMNIACS "AT LEAST I'M NOT WITH YOU" Source: Virus de Blues Date: 04/2009 Writer: Rene Malines

Left Coast Blues, their first album, carried beautiful promises. Well, the promises were kept, their new "baby" is a complete success! Of course, the boys may have matured, but while their discographic baptism was self produced before the Californian label took over, here our Insomniacs benefit from a know how that's certainly not to be neglected. Still, it's our PNW guys who compose, write, and play the 13 gems featured in this disc, and it's their undeniable talent that's being brought forth. In fact, the production was shared between Jeff Scott Fleenor and our big boys themselves, who are known as Vyasa Dodson, vocals and guitar, Dean Mueller, bass, Alex Shakeri, piano and Hammond B3, and Dave Melyan, drums. They're joined by Al Blake, of Hollywood Blue Flames fame, on harp on Lonesome, a Memphis Slim's song , Mitch Kashmar, also on harp, on Hoodoo Man Blues by Junior Wells, Joel Paterson on pedal steel guitar, yes indeed, on Broke And Lonely, signed by Johnny Otis and Johnny Guitar Watson, as well as Jeff Turmes on baritone on Directly From My Heart To You, the magnificent Little Richard's slow blues Sugarcane Harris made famous, and on tenor on 4 more tracks. But don't worry, this is not an all covers album, even if those were very carefully picked. Vyasa Dodson contributed 7 originals all by himself, compositions that, if they do show Dodson's influences, perfectly stand out. The whole is a jewel of a CD in which jump blues, rock ballads, pieces a la Shadows and slow blues get together in a mix of styles as varied as they are enjoyable, and the result is a great confirmation for these young fellows whom we promise a beautiful future to.