Review: Selwyn Birchwood ‘Exorcist’
By Mike O’Cull
Award-winning blues visionary Selwyn Birchwood creates the future of American music in real time on his incendiary new album Exorcist.
Set to drop June 9th, 2023 on Chicago’s Alligator Records, Exorcist is Birchwood’s most fully realized effort to date and shows us all what it means to make smart, relevant, and body-rocking modern blues. Grammy Award winner Tom Hambridge produced the record and helped Selwyn find the sound and intensity needed to capture this righteous and believable sample of what the future will sound like. Birchwood combines deep blues, blazing psychedelic rock, rump-shaking funk, and Southern soul into a singularity that’s both personal and universal. His singing, guitar and lap steel work, and songwriting are the real, high-value deal and can raise any roof in the world.
Selwyn Birchwood was born in 1985 in Orlando, Florida to a father from Tobago and a mother from the UK. He picked up the guitar at age 13 and was soon able to copy the music he heard on the radio. Unmoved by the rock and rap of that era, young Selwyn gravitated to the music of Jimi Hendrix. In Jimi, he found the larger-than-life hero he needed to show him the way. He also saw the one-and-only Buddy Guy during this period, who was an influence on Hendrix, and knew he was destined for a life in the blues.
Birchwood self-released his first record FL Boy in 2011, won the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and leveled-up to the big leagues in 2014 with his Alligator Records debut Don’t Call No Ambulance. The set won both the Living Blues Award and the Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut. He now tours the world relentlessly, rocking stages at festivals and concerts in the US, Europe, and Mexico. Birchwood is on the vanguard of contemporary blues and packs an originality that virtually eliminates any competition.
Songs like Birchwood’s opening track “Done Cryin’” build on blues traditions but aren’t meant to be a history lesson. This funky tune about leaving a less-than-faithful lover puts the pain of the blues into a new frame and turns the genre on its head. SB’s wildly-present baritone vocals and stinging guitar lines are fresh, young, and sound like no one but himself. He clearly knows the old ways but that was then and this is now.
“FLorida Man” is a hard funk jam that deals with all the news stories about the shenanigans guys from the Sunshine State get into. Birchwood’s lyrics relate some of the antics that go on where “the Wild West meets the Dirty South” and reveal that even native Floridians like him wonder where these dudes come up with this stuff. He fires up the lap steel for this one and rips out licks that will leap out of your speakers. His tone is thick and distorted, giving each note an urgency that fits perfectly into his band’s pocket.
“Florida Man”
The title cut “Exorcist” is a dark, mid-tempo workout with an occult theme. Selwyn sings the story of loving a woman with soul-stealing powers and lets his guitar scream to the heavens. Sax man Regi Oliver flies high here, as well, and he and Birchwood make quite a melodic and textural pair. They conspire to make “Exorcist” an album highlight.
“Lazarus” gets things moving in a more positive direction. It was a gospel flavor to it that will lift your heart on high and Birchwood sings with the fervor of a tent-show preacher. His voice is a truly special instrument full of the kind of character and expressiveness that can’t be taught and he uses it for all it’s worth.
Other notables on Exorcist include “Underdog” and “Swim At Your Own Risk.” Every moment of it, however, is inspiring and lyrically tuned into present day life in America. Selwyn Birchwood, along with a handful of other young stars, is going to be spoken of someday with the reverence we save for the ones who move things forward. Listen once and you won’t be able to stop.
Selwyn Birchwood website
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