Ghalia Volt: Burn The House Down

It is certainly no coincidence that Ghalia Volt's adopted moniker suggests power, specifically the electric sort. Anglicized from the original Belgian, the name intimates dynamism, the likes of which have similarly pervaded her previous albums, such as One Woman Band (Ruf Records, 2021), though not to the same degree as Burn The House Down. The music on this sixth full-length record of hers crackles with a surplus of energy. 

And considering the company this woman keeps here, that is only natural. Fresh off his collaboration with North Mississippi Allstars,' Do The Rump! (Forty Below Records, 2024), JD Simo not only produces and engineers, but also mixed the eleven cuts—for sympathetic mastering by L. Nix—so the definition of the instruments resonates right down to the lower register where bassist Brian Allen and drummer Chris Powell reside.

With the rhythm section the only other players here besides the fretboarders, it only makes sense the tracks proceed in as speedy a succession as "Mine" and "Ride." And, in keeping with the eye-catching glossy finish of the double-fold album sleeve (inside and out), it's impossible to miss multiple off-mike expressions of delight that populate within these 35 minutes of music.

Still, Burn Down The House contains no extraneous singing or playing. The economy of expression only deepens its impact during the course of  "Where Do We Go," to name just one number, and the intensity does not lessen when the volume and tempo decreases there or for things like the salty metaphor of "Wrong Horse:" Volt's voice often swoops in and out of baby doll tones as she sings, a contrast all the more vivid through the more vigorous intonations of her delivery during the latter.

By the time Volt and company skip so lightly through "Wreckin' & Rollin,'" it is clear how thoroughly she has absorbed, processed and refined the influence(s) from her blues roots. Such songs only vaguely recall the tried-and-true of traditional or works of genre icons such as John Lee Hooker or Muddy Waters, in part because there are those originals like the title song that contain elements of pop and rock. 

Vintage as these cuts sound, right down to how Volt plays slide guitar on cuts like "No Ice Please," (contrary to the inner sleeve credits, such stinging sounds are all hers), Burn Down The House is nothing if not contemporary in its musical designs. The artist herself never succumbs to slavish concessions of style. and instead, during the ominous likes of "River Song," radiates echoes of the swamp (she moved to NOLA in 2016).

And how appropriate for a cut that, like all its counterparts, was recorded at a Nashville studio dubbed 'The House of Grease.' Such irrefutable evidence, plus the sputtering stop-and-go spontaneity of "Let Yo' Hair Down," paints the portrait of an artist as true to herself as the legacy of the music she so savors. Little wonder that Volt's truncated minute-and-forty-second solo turn on "Black And White" is so deeply haunting as a muted conclusion to an album replete with blistering edges.