If you're a blues fan who's turned off by the wash of big-budget, slicked-out recordings that are often filed in the blues bins these days, you should take heart and wrap an ear around Robert Lowery's second Orleans album. Recorded largely acoustically, with lots of spooky echo all around, it spotlights the blues as a solo and small-group art form, a far cry from the overblown horn arrangements and rote rhythm sections that ruin many a new blues release. It isn't entirely fair to contrast Robert Lowery's music with modern blues recordings, but records like this one do tend to highlight how immensely powerful and downright spooky the blues can be at its best, and just like Skip James or Robert Johnson could make you feel like you were hearing something from another world, so can Robert Lowery. It's mostly just Robert, acoustic, alone, with an occasional guest such as Katie Webster on piano or harpist Virgil Thrasher in tow - a master bluesman practicing his craft. And when it's one who has gone largely unappreciated his entire life, it makes the occasion all the more moving. Lowery's equally exceptional last album (Earthquake Blues) garnered major blues attention, and this one should follow suit. It's one of the finest newly-released recordings of the blues you'll hear all year.
--- James Lien
Originally published in CMJ's New Music Report (May 15th, 1995), pg. 24