Starvation Box has it all; a little southern rock, a little zydeco, a little rock-a-billy and, of course, Jim Suhler's specialty: plenty of rockin' blues. The album is a "best of" collection containing 17 songs taken from previous Jim Suhler & Monkey Beat CDs.

The drums may keep the beat and the bass helps to hold it all together, but it's Jim's guitar rifts that push the music. Starvation Box is not an album for putting on the CD player and laying back; the driving guitars will have you finding it hard to sit still.

If the blues is about feeling bad; then Jim Suhler & Monkey Beat will make you feel good to feel bad.

Fans of Jim Byrnes, Smokin' Joe Bonamassa or George Thorogood & the Destroyers (with whom Jim and the boys toured) will want to add Starvation Box to their collection. Fans of Rod Stewart's "Gasoline Alley" and "Hot Legs" days might also find Starvation Box of interest.

by Sherrill Fulghum
Rambles.NET
5 August 2006