Blood & Treasure
Artist: Paul Mark & the Van Dorens
Label: Radiation Records
Time: 11 tracks / 46:35
 
We can always use a little southern boogie, blues and rock & roll, and that’s exactly what you get with Blood & Treasure. Cleanly produced by Paul Mark and Jeff Powell, the eleven tracks feature serviceable but unremarkable performances that can keep you entertained well enough, and interested long enough, as long as your expectations aren’t too high. The idea behind a project like this is not so much to produce a lasting work of art as it is to provide an earthy, visceral experience, and for forty-six and a half minutes that’s pretty much what Paul Mark & the Van Dorens do. As with any blues/funk/soul project, the whole thing will stand or fall based on the strength of the performances, and it’s a mixed bag of results on Blood & Treasure.
 
Blood & Treasure has eleven songs: ten featuring vocals, and “Ruff House,” the ambitious Stevie Ray Vaughan-meets-Santana instrumental, which allows the band to strut their musical stuff and closes the album on a strong note. The rest of the CD is interspersed with your basic blues, boogie, rock & roll and one genuine soul ballad, “Let Them Talk.” Influences are several, and often obvious; the chorus of “Don’t Get Me Started” recalls Joe Cocker’s version of “A Little Help From My Friends,” Dylan’s “Summer Days” is strongly suggested by “Lotta Things to Say” (of course, Dylan’s songs have become genre tributes/parodies all on their own), and “Perp Walk” sounds like a Stevie Ray Vaughan out-take. 
 
Paul Mark, lead singer and guitarist (also playing piano on three tracks), heads up the basic band, which played live in the studio. With James Strain on Bass, Harry Peal on drums, Rick Steff on Hammond organ, and Susan Marshall and Jackie Johnson on background vocals, the band navigates through the eleven tracks with confidence and momentum yet without hitting that deep groove that this type of project calls out for. Strain and Peal provide a fine rhythmic foundation for the songs and Steff has some genuinely strong moments on the Hammond organ throughout. While Mark is an ambitious and talented guitarist, he seems to be reaching for a groove he simply hasn’t developed yet. In several spots his guitar sounds just ever-so-slightly flat – sure, it adds to the ‘live-ness’ of the recording, but also points to a weakness in technique and/or his ‘ear.’ In an interview about the project, Mark points out, “…You won’t hear any click-tracks, drum programming or pitch-correction going on.” Admirable, but all the more reason to stay in tune! From his playing and songwriting, it’s obvious that Mark owes much to the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan, but the inescapable stylistic comparison just serves to highlight the fact that stepping into the footprints of a giant can leave you looking a bit small. 
 
Paul Mark and the Van Dorens do a good job producing a southern blues/rock/boogie sound but have produced a fairly average example of the genre. Maybe they should wear their influences a little less noticeably on their collective sleeve and concentrate on forging a more distinctly unique identity. Roots rock shouldn’t be too polished, but Blood & Treasure is somewhat flawed, and probably will appeal more to less discerning ears or, perhaps as intended, become a good disc to play at parties while munching on tacos and burritos. 
 
Bert Saraco
http://www.myspace.com/expressimage     
http://expressimagephoto.tripod.com 
 
 
2½  TOCKS.