Album review

Hazmat Modine

Bahamut (Geckophonic)

Not everyone can sing, we don't all dance, and some folks don't even love. But if one thing unites humanity, it's that we all screw up from time to time—and that's what makes the blues our universal language. Taj Mahal, Tom Waits and Ali Farka Toure have all traced the ley lines that conjoin the Mississippi Delta to points beyond in mutual mopery. Hazmat Modine leader Wade Schuman is a fellow traveler, one who's cashed in an unusually high number of frequent-flier miles pursuing his mojo.

A dizzying harmonica player (check out his solo feature, "Lost Fox Train") and soulful guitarist, Schuman steers a combo whose members have punched the clock in jazz, Latin, klezmer and Hawaiian-swing groups. No doubt that's why Hazmat Modine sounds so comfortable crunching styles ranging from ska to Balkan brass raves and beyond, not to mention jamming with Tuvan overtone singers Huun-Huur-Tu on three tracks. Bahamut is thick with ear-tickling arrangements, such as the two harmonicas, two tubas, bass saxophone, Hawaiian steel guitar and cimbalom of "Who Walks in When I Walk Out?"

Schuman's winningly gruff vocals are well suited to a bluesman's typically put-upon malaise. He also has a knack for turning a poetic phrase, as in "Dry Spell" ("You say that you're so thirsty / You'd even drink my tears"). The disc is liberally soaked in whimsy, nowhere more so than on the title track: Even gargantuan fish gods of ancient lore get the blues, it seems.—Steve Smith

Hazmat Modine plays Joe's Pub Sat 11.