Sitting down to write this I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of When Rivers Meet’s limited edition ‘The Boathouse Sessions’. It feels like I should be sippin’ bottom shelf whisky while I do. So I am.

Generally, I write satire and talk to people who’ll listen (and try to be clever about it). I’m not a music blogger but the story of the last couple of years has been When Rivers Meet. What they do, what they have done and how they have done it, have inspired me to drop the cynical pen and lighten up while I still can.

Phenomenon is an unusually overused word but it was probably invented for the moment Grace and Aaron Bond hit the road and took their brand of Blues with them and the Blues/Rock world by storm. Having collected a bevvy of awards and accolades already, they also have back pockets stuffed with nominations. Planet Rock and the Blues/Rock Press love ‘em to bits and quite rightly.

After some EP adventures their aptly titled first album ‘We Fly Free’ (2020) didn’t open doors, it took a battering ram to them. Accompanied by perfectly atmospheric videos to ‘Did I Break The Law’ and ‘Battleground’ these two hauntingly powerful tracks neatly summarise their brand of Rockin’ Blues and set up the rest of the album. Brilliant.

Having been asked, “What are they like?” my answer was pretty swift: “They aren’t.” Because they aren’t really like anyone / any band else. Obviously, they have genre traits and they come through in spades giving them their unique appeal.

If you like your blues as raw as Jeff Healey, as belligerent as Rory Gallagher and sonorous as early Texas then these guys will take you to your hometown.

Late in 2021 the second album ‘Saving Grace’ happened. That’s it. It happened and with an irony you need to get used to – Grace didn’t need saving at all as she and Aaron grab the album from both ends and shake it. It IS heavier than their first but the brooding ‘He’ll Drive You Crazy’ is a show stopper, as is ‘Testify’.

As I say, I don’t know much about music but I know… well, I always loved slide guitar. There’s plenty here. Somehow in the first album Grace owned her own characteristic ‘Slide Vocal’, by fair means or foul, it doesn’t matter. It’s amazing. In the second album, although undoubtedly heavier, the sheer ethereal beauty of her voice pops up totally unexpectedly in so many tracks. Aaron masterfully counterpoints (there you go, I’m a bloody writer!) every move she makes, joins, retreats, attacks. Just wonderful.     

Refreshingly, they are currently shying away from the perhaps cliched record deal that most aspiring musicians dream of, to remain true to their roots and a close-knit group of friends who manage the Socials, backstage stuff and logistics of the all-important Merch. Actually, if I had such talent (I’m just a tourist with a typewriter) then I’d like to do it that way too.

It sounds like the stuff of a romantic musician’s idyll, hitting the road in a camper to live your dream, recording what you want to hear in a backwater studio, shelves collapsing under all the awards. But you know what, I’ll bet it’s bloody hard work to be that damn’ good. But those two together? It looks easy-peasy.

As Brightlingsea local, and longtime fan, Anita Marsh put it (inspired into verse), “When Rivers Meet, two souls coming together to create a truly unique sound. Lifts our souls to make us escape to a world they created and party together to their sound.” Anita, owner of Reach for The Paws, was introduced to that unique sound when WRM played her partner’s big birthdays at the Brightlingsea British Legion. “They are just such a lovely couple and Brightlingsea are so proud of them.”

What shines through their brand of dark, rocking blues and vividly dramatic lyrics, is their togetherness, that of the sum being greater than the two parts and of staying true to that. It also oozes out of their super-regular livestreams and manifest generosity to their fan base and audiences. Ironically, the traditionally downbeat heart-wrenching subject matter of their Blues comes from God knows where, as they are both so bloody together, chirpy and entertaining! What’s that about? It’s like reverse musicology if there is such thing. Oh, there is – they just made it happen.

Clearly at least one of them, if not both, have sold their souls – way down where the Essex tarmac ends, out on the Colne Delta. Now, where’s that CD?