Benjamin Booker
"Fucking up on a five-year bender," Benjamin Booker growls on "Violent Shiver," a song that sounds something like the Strokes if they'd been suckled on moonshine in a juke joint. A New Orleans-based, Jack White-endorsed 25-yearold with an open sore of a voice and a love of distorted boogie-blues shredding, Booker is grafting new shoots into roots music. On the twisted ballad "Spoon Out My Eyeballs," he croaks, "I would listen to the radio/If I liked songs produced by 40-year-olds in high-tech studios." Then he proves his point with a seizure-inducing rave-up – a flashback to the days when wild-eyed young guitar-slingers made the most dangerous dance music around.