Occasionally a debut album really grabs ahold of me and gives me true hope for the future of the blues. The ten-track, self-titled record from Sugarmill Slim is truly one of those. It’s loaded down with six ripping deep-cut covers and four marvelous originals delivered in a fearless juke-joint fashion. Sugarmill Slim aka Anders La Source is a multi-instrumentalist based in the Los Angeles/Hollywood/San Fernando Valley area who found focus playing harmonica in the confines of raw blues. Produced, engineered, and mixed by Chuck Kavooras (Bob Margolin, The Mannish Boys), the album features Slim on harp and lead vocals, with a band comprised of Courtney Kakebeen on bass guitar, Slam McAdam on drums, Luca Neroni on guitar, and Isaac Rawdog Plummer on organ and piano.

From the beginning of their cover of Muddy Water’s “Just to be With You”, I was totally amazed at the intensity of Slim’s harp playing and his made-for-the-blues vocals. His cover of Little Walter’s “Me and Piney Brown” is a pure delight. Plummer wails on the organ of this red hot rhythm section. A funky slice of soul “Leaving Truck” is an uncontested favorite. “Screamin’”, an instrumental which first landed on the debut album of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, is given a makeover cloaked in steamy Memphis soul. It reminds me immensely of the MGs. More intense blues follows with covers of Sonny Boy Williamson II’s Help Me” and Junior Wells’ “Little by Little”. These are absolutely fabulous. Slim sings with the ferocity of Jerry Lee Lewis on “Hook Me Up”, the scorching original track he first released as a single.

I’m so glad I stumbled upon this record. This is honestly one of the best straight-up blues albums I’ve heard this past year. I highly recommend checking it out. You will not be disappointed. - Philly Cheeze’s Blues and Rock Reviews

Like a trotting horse entering a fine glass shop. Without having discovered the harmonica as an instrument, he fell into his hands a Paul Butterfield album, discovered Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters and that's how it all began. Pianist, drummer, guitarist and above all harmonica player, originally from Los Angeles, Anders La Source (Sugarmill Slim) is the present of the blues, a living force of nature, a musician with an exuberant personality, a transgressive force and a lucid performer of the reality that he has had to live. Seduced by the heterodoxy and irreverence of fashion in clothing, La Source embodies the glamor of Bowie and T-Rex, the impudence of Prince and the solvency of the Stones. His riffs with the harmonica are like gusts of wind that shake your face in the middle of a storm, his presence and personality awakens in the listener endless sensations prone to enjoyment and emotion. It's unbridled blues music. Make no mistake, if you are a quiet man do not try with him - Blues 21

The Los Angeles-based artist calls his music glammed up blues, harmonica punk or filthy harmonica blues. Both descriptions fit this debut album, on which Slim crafts a down and dirty updated take on classic 1950s/’60s Chicago blues. He does credible covers of such blues classics as “Little By Little,” “Me and Piney Brown,” “Help Me” and “Leaving Trunk,” breathing life into the songs with his nasty and sassy harmonica playing (plus an occasional inspired guitar solo from Luca Neroni). He also mixes in a few worthy original tunes, such as “Hook Me Up” and “Boogie, Ya Fools.” What may help Sugarmill Slim get noticed (besides what, by all accounts, is a dynamic stage presence) may be his androgynous Bowie-ish look — a rare gambit in a genre that projects toughness and traditional genders. Hopefully Slim will continue to develop as a songwriter because in the end, his music will have to speak for itself. - The Morning Call

“Sugarmill Slim's self-titled debut album is Slim's vision of raw, solid and unadulterated blues, his idiosyncratic but interesting take on American roots music, which he places again in a contemporary context. An excellent debut by an artist that I definitely want to taste live!…“ (ESC – rootstime.be) - Rootstime