Review: Mayday

Artist: Lady Maisery
Album: Mayday
Label: Rootbeat

Track List:

1. The Crow on the Cradle
2. The False Young Man
3. Palaces of Gold
4. Katy  Cruel
5. Lady Maisery
6. The Factory Girl
7. Constant Billy/ The Lie of the Land
8. This Woman's Work
9. The Lady and the Blacksmith
10. Intro - The Grey Selkie
11. The Grey Selkie
12. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme

Overview
I had not, in fact, heard of Lady Maisery until I happened to see a friend listening to them on Spotify four days ago, but have since then become a staunch supporter.  This process took something like half an hour.  This is an album full of traditionally presented British ballads - some familiar, some less so - presented by three people with a wonderful understanding of harmony and expression.  There is a nice mix of texture throughout this album - their namesake is presented very simply with the three ladies (Hannah James of Kerfuffle and, unsurprisingly, Hannah James and Sam Sweeney; Hazel Askew of the Askew Sisters and; Rowan Rhenigans of Fidola - all astute and well-rounded folkies) relating the tale in a driving unison; meanwhile the Grey Selkie is given the harp fiddle vocal and accordion treatment.  If you are a fan of pared-down and simply but sympathetically presented Folk, you really ought to check this out.  There are also some nice Norwegian/Generically Scandinavian overtones to a few of the tracks - The Grey Selkie in particular, unsurprisingly, as it is set in Norway and Rowan is something of a Scandinavia Enthusiast (Me too Rowan, me too.)

Lady Maisery pull off a particularly folky thing with this album, which is the tendency to swing from tear-jerking to jolly without missing a beat.  Good work.

Favourite Tracks
I really, really like the Lady Maisery version of The Lady and The Magician (You may know it as Twa Magicians, or Two Magicians or something similar).   Close vocal harmony with really simple percussion in the form of stamping, clapping and tambourine (or maybe Morris Bells?  Hard to tell without watching them perform, something I really hope to do at some point soon).  Charming, very sweetly sung and full of humour and meaty harmonies.  It is tricky to pick it out exactly who is singing what, but I think it's Rowan hitting the low D (my tuning is not great...) on "..but HE became....".  That is a sexy note right there.  Props also to the wonderful Constant Billy/Lie of the Land.  I would happily dance a ceilidh to Lady Maisery singing tunes in three part harmony (Ladies, if you get to read this - any chance of that becoming a reality?).

Least Favourite Tracks
I don't have a least favourite track to declare here.  It's all lovely.  It feels like a cop out, but Lady Maisery do not put a foot wrong in my opinion.

Closing Comments
At the very least, go to the website and check out some of the sample music on their website; http://www.ladymaisery.com/album_categories/albums/  I promise, if you're a folky, you'll thank me - and, more appropriately - them.

Review; Ghost on Ghost

Artist; Iron and Wine
Album; Ghost on Ghost
Label; 4AD

Track list

1. Caught in the Briars
2. The Desert Babbler
3. Joy
4. Low Light Buddy of Mine
5. Grace for Saints and Ramblers
6. Grass Widows
7. Singers and the Endless Song
8. Sundown (Back in the Briars)
9. Winter Prayers
10. New Mexico's No Breeze
11. Lover's Revolution
12. Baby Center Stage

Overview

Sam Beam (The one man act that comprises Iron and Wine... I assume there are other musicians involved but I'm damned if I know who they are) has come an AWFUL long way since The Creek Drank the Cradle back in 2002 in a number of ways.  Where Creek Drank The Cradle was basically just Sam and his guitar and a four track cassette recorder, every album since has built on this in terms of complexity and in general polish - to the point where, if not for his pretty distinctive voice - I don't think you would ever believe CDTC and Ghost on Ghost were made by the same person.;  Sam has eschewed his Guy & Guitar (or, occasionally, Boy & Banjo) roots for a larger richer sound, and in a lot of ways this works for him.  Ghost on Ghost, even more so than his last album, Kiss Each Other Clean and the one before that, The Shepherds Dog, seems to incorporate a lot more by way of blues, jazz and gospel elements, such as horn sections, choral work and honky-tonk style piano.  It's easy to understand why he would have such affinity for these things, being as he was born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line, but for me personally, I'm not sure it always works.   Because these elements are used less than sparingly the whole way through the album, there is very little to distinguish one track from the next.

I have been listening and listening and listening to this album, not because it has particularly captured my attention, but because I really, desperately, want it to impress me the same way The Shepard's Dog and our Endless Numbered Days did.  It hasn't though.  All of the things I love about those earlier albums are still there; Sam Beam's unique vocal style - soft,  narrative and comforting; his wonderfully understanding guitar playing (never overpowering, always sympathetic to the tone of the piece), his grasp of lyric and expression... But there is nothing stand-out across the whole album.   There is something soulless and repetetive about the production across the album, which I think is as a result of Sam Beam making a conscious effort not to make the same album again and again - and bravo to him for recognizing this possibility and striving for new sounds - but which results in a general missing of the mark, with little textural variation across the dozen tracks on offer here.

(In a slightly nit-picky aside - I'd also like to express disappointment with the album artwork... But that's not really a reason to buy/not buy it)

Favourite Tracks
I'd like to stress again that I didn't hate this album, and there are some real high-points - Caught in the Briars is a great start to the album and made me hopeful for another stonking release from Iron and Wine.  Starting with some distant "percussion" and sustained Hammond organs before jumping in with a rich, deep guitar lick which forms the basis of the song, with a lot of the classic Sam Beam chorus-effect backing vocals and some lush chord changes around the chorus.  The other stand out track for me is Lovers' Revolution, I think because it has such a wonderful build up in texture and a punchy farty sax line - it passes as a sort of Art Blakey-era jazz/blues piece.  Sam Beam's expression reaches a pitch on this album around the two minute mark in this track, and the shouted chorus lines work nicely - very work-song.

Least Favourite Track
I struggled to write this section for the last review I did (Blackbeard's Tea Party - Whip Jamboree) because I struggled to find a track I didn't like, but I do actually have a least favourite track here... "Joy".  Dull, overly saccharine in nature, highly forgettable.  Next please.

Closing Comments
I so desperately wanted to love this album and I feel a little bit cheated by the whole thing, truth be told.  The album is largely flat and uninteresting save for a few moments.  I don't think that it is, in and of itself, a bad album, but I think it is tempered by my relatively high expectations of Iron and Wine.  By all means check it out, especially if you're generally a fan of Americana, and folk tempered by blues and jazz, but if you come to it expecting something of the rich variety seen in Shepherd's Dog, think again.

Review: Whip Jamboree

Artist: Blackbeard's Tea Party
Album: Whip Jamboree
Label: Proper Music

Track List

1. The Valiant Turpin
2. Devil in the Kitchen
3. Ford O' Kabul River
4. Bulgine
5. The New Jigs
6. Lankin
7. Polka Against the Clock
8. rackabella
9. The four Hour Shovel
10. Landlady
11. Whiststable Cottage/Superfly
12. Whip Jamboree

Overview.

Wow.  Well, you could never get Blackbeard's Tea Party (BBTP for short from here on in...) confused with any other act.  They have a sound entirely their own (the only group coming even close at the minute is The Monster Ceilidh Band). They have this wonderful, meaty, almost sinister sound to a lot of the things they do.  I think this is in part down to the interesting balance of instruments in the band - somewhere between Rock/Metal (Overdriven guitar, electric bass, drums) and Trad Folk ,(Capital T, Capital F, - Violin, melodeon, percussion).  I think it's telling that the band is obviously aware of this dichotomy - they stand on stage with trad on one side and non-trad on the other.  That isn't to say that the two elements don't mix well together.   I was lucky enough to see them play live at the Talking Heads last night, and they are keenly aware of each other's presence and abilities, and that sympathy shows with how all of their pieces fit together.  So yeah, this is an album which could ONLY have been made by this group, which given the tendency folk music has to sound a little.... umm... samey, is a high compliment.  

Going back to their stage performance for a minute, I heartily suggest that you go and see them live if you get the chance - if you aren't convinced by their album work, you will be convinced by their humorous  lively self-aware performance.  Even better, actually - if you get a chance to go to a BBTP ceilidh, you should definitely do that.  I went to their Sidmouth 2012 Bulverton ceilidh, which for me was the highlight of the festival.  

Favourite Tracks

As I mentioned in the Broken Down Gentlemen review, I am a sucker for sea shanties, so it is perhaps unsurprising that my favourite track on this album is Bulgine.  It is preceded by a solo tune from fiddle player Laura Barber (who to my mind, is one of the finest fiddle players on the folk scene today) before the rest of the band come in with the main theme and vocalist/melodeon player comes in with the vocals.  Stuart is possessed of an extremely characterful voice, particularly suited to the sort of work BBTP are doing.  The track is punctuated with some wonderful percussion work from joint percuissioneers (It's a word now, get used to it) Dave Boston (Djembe, Cowbell, Woodblock) and Liam 'Yom' Hardy (Cajón, tiny cymbal) who are clearly very much in tune with each other and the rest of the band, demonstrating characterful and precise stops throughout the whole BBTP canon.  Honourable mention to Landlady, which I played about three times in a row the first time I heard it.  I can give you an insight into the sort of  performances you can expect if you get to see Stuart singing with BBTP - when I saw him sing at Sidmouth last summer he introduced the song "Jolly Bold Robber" with the following joke;

"This is one of the most homoerotic songs in the whole folk canon - and believe me ladies and gents, it is a very large cannon"

It is a very large canon ladies and gents, and the bits of it that BBTP choose to polish are very shiny.  Very shiny indeed.

Least Favourite Tracks

I actually dislike writing this section, and I can't think of anything overly constructive to say in criticism....  If I have to make a criticism to make of BBTP, something I'm not keen to do, it would be that their love of stops sometimes gets the better of them.  In The New Jigs set, there is something like thirty seconds worth of stops on guitar, bass and percussion and I feel it just breaks up the set a little too much. 

Closing Comments

Blackbeard's Tea Party are doing some wonderful, if occasionally unsettling things with folk music, and this album is well worth your time and money, as are their live shows.  I should perhaps warn you though, if Steeleye Span's rendition of "Summer Is Icumen In" is your idea of the pinnacle of folk music, you may not find everything here to your liking, but you should definitely stray out of your comfort zone a little just to check ;)

Review; Broken Down Gentlemen

DISCLAIMER

This is my first blog article, and you may well notice that it is a review for an album which has already been out for more than a month.  Bear with me whilst I exercise my writing muscles and get this somewhere on track.


Album: Broken Down Gentlemen
Artist; Faustus

Label: Voyager Records

Track List

1. Broken Down Gentlemen
2. American Stranger
3. Blow The Windy Morning
4. Prentice Boy
5. Banks of the Nile
6. Captain's Apprentice
7. Og's Eye Man
8. I Wish, I Wish
9. Lovely Johnny
10. Thrashing Machine

Overview
This is the second album from Faustus, following their self-titled debut back in 2008 (That is, not counting their stint as Dr. Faustus 2003 - 2005.  So that I have to do less research/writing, we're discounting Dr. Faustus as a different band entirely)  So, we've been waiting getting on for five years for this, and frankly (for me at least) Broken Down Gentlemen (BDG) has a lot to live up to.   For me, the first Faustus album was a wonderful palate cleanser after hearing both Benji and Paul performing in Bellowhead.  Where Bellowhead are a massive stage presence with stacks of bombast and some cunning takes on what folk music actually is, Faustus pare things right down to a three-man operation putting out really solid, emotive and traditional songs.  That's not to say that I don't like Bellowhead, but a man can't survive on horn sections alone.

Favourite Tracks
For me, as a fan of sea shanties, the stand-out track on this album has to be Og's Eye Man.  The opening Bouzouki lick and Saul Rose's driving melodeon bass notes set a really punchy tone for the song, setting a wonderful counterpoint for Paul Sartin's (typically) languorous vocal style and some wonderful harmony lines.    It is listed in the sleeve notes as being paired with a Benji Kirkpatrick-penned tune called "Ring her bell", but for me it was hard to pick out a tune that was particularly distinct from the melody line of the song.  Perhaps that's just my poor ear, who knows?
Frankly, any song which finds a way to include the phrase "the cheeks of her arse going chuff-chuff-chuff" get's an instant thumbs up from me.  Make of that mental image what you will.

Special mention also to Banks of the Nile, a wonderful version of a classic "man goes to war - woman wants to go with him - man says no and goes off to kill Johnny Foreigner" story.  Poor Johnny Foreigner.  Such an unfortunate name :-(  Good track though - wonderful textural build up taking nearly the entire length of the track.

Least Favourite Tracks
I'm brought to mind of a review I heard Saul Rose quote last time I saw Faustus live which was that "nobody does misery like Paul Sartin."  I can see what the reviewer meant - Paul seems especially keen to find the most depressing folk songs he can find to drag out and lament over.  Sometimes it works wonderfully - Brisk Lad off of Faustus is one of my favourite folk tracks ever, and I think Paul Sartin's voice suits it wonderfully. However, his slow, lamenting tracks on BDG just seem to slow the album right down.  Which is not to say that they are poorly done, but for me at least they are perhaps poorly placed on the album.  I'd like to hear Paul Sartin doing something more upbeat (more like Og's Eye Man... see above).  Perhaps on the next album we can convince him to record Summer is Icumen in.  I'd like that.

Review
Broken Down Gentleman is a well-craft album from people who obviously have a very good working relationship and sense of musicianship.  Aside from a few pacing problems brought about by Paul Sartin over-indulging in melancholy, I think this is likely to be one of the best albums we see all year.  On a ten-track album, it would have been nice to see another tune set - the three self-penned tunes on Faustus were stonking (Google has not told me that word is wrong...  I thought Stonking was a Yorkshireism), and another set like that would have been a welcome addition.

Still, fully recommending this album if you don't already have it, and you should definitely track them down next time they're playing live somewhere!

~Phill.