Blam!

Blam! introduced Ridley Bent as one of Canadian music’s most distinctive storytellers, combining the narrative traditions of country and folk with hip-hop beats, funk, scratching and hard-edged rock. Produced by Chin Injeti and released by MapleMusic Recordings in 2005, the album collected five years of Bent’s story songs into a strange, cinematic world of outlaws, drifters, criminals, lovers and assorted characters living somewhere between pulp fiction and a country song. Bent dubbed the sound “hick-hop,” but Blam! was ultimately less about genre collision than storytelling, songs like “Suicidewinder,” “David Harley’s Son” and “In the Trunk of a Black Lexus” unfolding like miniature movies, delivered in Bent’s unmistakable country-and-western talk-sing. The album established the approach to character, narrative and dark humour that would remain central to his songwriting even as his later records moved more firmly toward country music. The album track listing has been modified for vinyl. It has been remastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel Mastering.