With the volume low, John E. Vistic sounds like Nick Cave, but as you turn it up, he gets more countrified, which is odd, since he’s Britain’s answer to the alt-country craze. Vistic sounds more Tennessee than London, but with a splash of the bayou and a dollop of Rolling Stones. This sampler EP contains seven songs with different feels, pulling together a complete portrait of an artist.
From the mad-poet twang of “Riverboat Blues” to the blues-drenched lament of “The Carnival,” the bluegrass picking of “Take Me Home” to the two-stepping honky-tonk dance number “Gamblin’ Man,” Vistic proves that you don’t have to be from Nashville to make credible country music with soul. It’s a testament to the authenticity of this record that it sounds utterly anachronistic when he refers to “the oilfields of Iraq” in one lyric.
The John E. Vistic Experience varies between a two to ten-piece band, but obviously the salient feature is John himself. One can picture him leaning on a microphone in a smoky bar in New Orleans, drinking Jack Daniel’s at two in the morning, and then sauntering off to walk along the banks of the Mississippi ‘til dawn. Not bad for a lad from Bristol.
