"Black Cat Oil" Review in PopMatters

Black Cat Oil: Delta Moon

By Steven Spoerl

PopMatters  

Delta Moon's Black Cat Oil offers a uniquely eclectic blend of Americana.

Delta Moon formed due to a chance meeting in a Georgia music store. Seemingly everything about that story informs not only Delta Moon’s sound but their style as well. It’s as if the pair that anchors Delta Moon, Tom Gray and Mark Johnson, were characters caught in the same Tom Waits song who were drawn together magnetically. Fortunately, that pairing is yielding incredibly strong results, the most recent evidence of which is Black Cat Oil, an album steeped in rustic southern styling and driven by complementary slide guitar parts and strong songwriting. One of Black Cat Oil‘s strongest feats is that it never seems to approach a one-note release, which so often plagues this sect of the Americana genre. It’s a strong record start to finish and only furthers the band’s already impressive reputation.