Turn off the lights, pull down the blinds, pour yourself something malt and light yourself a nice cigar. It's all about the atmosphere. Like in those small but nice clubs we see on TV in the US. Small, dark, smokey and having nothing to do with the small, dark and smokey ones we have here. Maybe because they lack the flies. maybe because there are no VW Golfs with 19" rims on the side of the discotheque only (it's Crisis over here too). But I'll bet it's the music. Let Them Talk is unplugged. Natural blues that needs no electricity, state-of-the-art studio with mixers thaaaaaaat big, whole lotta buttons and software costing a small country's GNP. And don't actually know how much the production costs (and frankly, I don't care), but the impression that you get while listening is exactly that - a small club, candles, the musicians on the stage and that's all. Because all that a style so personal as the blues needs is a soul and Hugh Laurie has a lot of that. The album is not guitar oriented, though the guitar is present in the background. The tempo is calm, which is a nice contrast to pretty much everything nowadays. It feels really good to seat back in the evening and slow down from 5th or 6th gear to the speed of Mississippi. You allow yourself to go with the flow because you are going where it takes you anyway, and even though you might not always like the direction, you have nothing but the twelve bars and the melancholy - blues all the way. Let Them Talk does not suppose glitter, big halls/stadiums, big spotlights and any of the other music biz stuff. It's more about the intimacy of the small club, the contact with the audience and all the other *music* stuff. And its simplicity is one of its biggest virtues.