Tinfoil Hat

Album review

In 2020, locked up at home, you had to keep busy. In the United States, whose future would be decided in November with the 2020 presidential election, it was necessary to keep busy and not give in to anxiety.  France's favourite American blues-rocker, Popa Chubby, would no doubt have preferred to spend the year on tour to celebrate It's A Mighty Hard Road, the compilation of his 30-year career. But the celebration was short-lived, and Popa Chubby consoled himself by making music at home. Locked down, but not cut off from the world, this unexpected album chronicles the year 2020 in America, from the Covid epidemic to conspiracy theories to the presidential election and racial violence. America is sick, it has lost its mind. Popa Chubby administers a shock treatment, sings loudly to tell America to pull itself together and subjects it to the electric waves of his guitar. Musically, it's Popa Chubby at his best, a concentrate of blues-rock energy with a touch of romance at times. He made this album all by himself and adds in a reggae track, highlighting his musical eclecticism, far from the blues-rock genre he is used to. Maybe Popa Chubby recorded these songs while dreaming of playing them on stage, and the frustration of not being able to do so adds to their power. It's pure Popa Chubby, but it's a little more than routine: Tinfoil Hat is about the urgency, anger, bitterness, revolt and hope of a musician who has never been more sincere and relevant. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz