Crunchy guitars are great. However they do not make a record. Matt Wake’s Set Yourself Free is collection of riff heavy blues complete with all the requisite wah-wah and fuzz tones we have come to associate with young white blues revivalists such as the North Mississippi Allstars and the Black Keys but it lacks the other necessary component of the genre, a voice.

Wake’s breathy attempt at the classic whiskey weary blues vocal succeeds in only one thing, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is white, really white. The weakness of the vocals is so glaring it simply overshadows anything good the record has to offer. The riffs are definitely there but the forced artificial nature of the singing makes them totally irrelevant. Overall, Set Yourself Free is a miss but if Wake concentrates solely on writing riffs on his next venture he just might redeem himself.