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| Track list: 1. Jolly Broom Man 2. L'Homme Arme 3. Drummer Boy for Waterloo 4. Keeper of the Game 5. Cutty Wren 6. The Saucy Sailor 7. Todos Los Bienes Del Mundo 8. The Downfall of Charing Cross 9. The Cropper Lads 10. Greenlander 11. The Awkward Recruit 12. I am The Song Running time: 48 minutes Released: 2009 |
Awkward is a great work - wkw in the middle there is nice and unusual. Second album in a row with Awkward in the title and a second folk album at that. Not very familiar with this one though - I think I bought it on a punt and found myself less than enamoured with it... lets see if that holds true.
This is an album of largely traditional songs, with just a handful of new compositions, which could go either way. I have to say though, I am pleasantly surprised by the jauntiness and pace of the opening track. The singing is not great, and the song is so-so, but there is an energy and vitality about the track that somehow makes it work anyway - at least until it loses all pace at which point it cedes the interest for a moment. Then it comes back with French (?) lyrics and so interest is restored just in time for the song to end.
It is New Years Eve, and I am trying to finish A before 2014 is out. It should be easy enough, just this and a 4 track EP from Alasdair Roberts to go. I hate this evening, so funnelling my energy into something constructive instead of simply falling into a funk and an early night is a good thing. It would be an easier sell if I were feeling more positive about either set of tunes, but still.
L'Homme Arme is an instrumental piece for the first 90 seconds, a very jaunty number again, then it comes in with a vocal that is quite demanding - spoken as much as sung and a mixture of French (I am sure this time!) and English. My recollections of this album did not have its pace and tempo so high and merry so perhaps I have simply created a false image of the disc and damned it unfairly in the past? No sooner typed, than disproven (again!). The pace drops off for a much more sombre number - and yet the delivery of the song does not really carry the melancholy of the lyric as the arrangement is relatively bright and the singing strident. The fiddles of sadness do arrive, along with a note of remorse in the voice, but only as the song is closing. All in all, this is pretty good so far.
Keeper of the Game is the first non-traditional song on the album, to go by my WMP metadata, but it is definitely in a traditional style, lyrically and in line structure. The arrangement is less so - the guitar part in particular stands out as modern. On the other hand, it somehow taps into a simple chic, almost Parisian in the use of accordion, and I like the result. I am not entirely off the mark with my memory though - for as much as I have enjoyed the first 4 tracks, Cutty Wren is the track that turned me off the album. I have nothing remotely positive to say about this song - badly sung, repetitive lyrically in a way that amplifies the effect of the poor singing and offensively arranged. It is so awful that it is entirely possible that this one song caused me to classify the whole album as un-listenable.
Thankfully it is now in my past (and already deleted) so perhaps the other songs can rescue the disc. That said, The Saucy Sailor does little for me and will be joining Cutty Wren in my cutting room. It is followed by a piece of Spanish origin which is sort of OK I guess, but does not offer much demand to stay in my library, so that is the middle third laid waste.
The Downfall of Charing Cross is more promising, though - a darker song, it still has an element of the spiky playing that characterised the opening two tracks and generated a good impression. It swells and contracts nicely in volume and in arrangement and whilst the edge on the accordion playing is sharper than I would like the song works, generates a decent atmosphere before giving way to something that really fits a view of a traditional English folk song with ample fiddling and communal singing. I can fully understand why some people would find The Cropper Lads and its ilk difficult to appreciate outside of live performance, but somehow it is this sort of folk that has captured my heart in the last decade despite me not moving in any social circles where it is really appreciated. That appreciation is not universal, and songs and tunes still need to be played well generally, but my chief interest was sparked by Spiers and Boden where that was guaranteed. There is enough in most of the tracks performed on this album to meet my approval, though none of them have really made me go "wow".
There are plenty of nice touches at start and end of this record - it is just a pity about that middle. I am currently listening to the title track and this is, I think, the best so far in terms of its construction - powerful, atmospheric, tuneful and catchy all at once, it feels like everything comes together synergistically in a way that does not quite hold true for the other songs on the album. The disc ends with a fiddle-and accordion based number, a sort of slow dance tune that gives way to a faster paced song just shy of two minutes in. The lift in pace improves it, for purely as a tune it was too slow to be interesting. The song itself is pretty dull but the evolution of the tune with it keeps a nice feel to the track as a whole and it is not an unsatisfying end to the album.
I have enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to, a quarter of it disappointed significantly and has been excised as a result but the remaining 9 tracks sit quite happily amongst the gamut of folk music in my collection.
This is an album of largely traditional songs, with just a handful of new compositions, which could go either way. I have to say though, I am pleasantly surprised by the jauntiness and pace of the opening track. The singing is not great, and the song is so-so, but there is an energy and vitality about the track that somehow makes it work anyway - at least until it loses all pace at which point it cedes the interest for a moment. Then it comes back with French (?) lyrics and so interest is restored just in time for the song to end.
It is New Years Eve, and I am trying to finish A before 2014 is out. It should be easy enough, just this and a 4 track EP from Alasdair Roberts to go. I hate this evening, so funnelling my energy into something constructive instead of simply falling into a funk and an early night is a good thing. It would be an easier sell if I were feeling more positive about either set of tunes, but still.
L'Homme Arme is an instrumental piece for the first 90 seconds, a very jaunty number again, then it comes in with a vocal that is quite demanding - spoken as much as sung and a mixture of French (I am sure this time!) and English. My recollections of this album did not have its pace and tempo so high and merry so perhaps I have simply created a false image of the disc and damned it unfairly in the past? No sooner typed, than disproven (again!). The pace drops off for a much more sombre number - and yet the delivery of the song does not really carry the melancholy of the lyric as the arrangement is relatively bright and the singing strident. The fiddles of sadness do arrive, along with a note of remorse in the voice, but only as the song is closing. All in all, this is pretty good so far.
Keeper of the Game is the first non-traditional song on the album, to go by my WMP metadata, but it is definitely in a traditional style, lyrically and in line structure. The arrangement is less so - the guitar part in particular stands out as modern. On the other hand, it somehow taps into a simple chic, almost Parisian in the use of accordion, and I like the result. I am not entirely off the mark with my memory though - for as much as I have enjoyed the first 4 tracks, Cutty Wren is the track that turned me off the album. I have nothing remotely positive to say about this song - badly sung, repetitive lyrically in a way that amplifies the effect of the poor singing and offensively arranged. It is so awful that it is entirely possible that this one song caused me to classify the whole album as un-listenable.
Thankfully it is now in my past (and already deleted) so perhaps the other songs can rescue the disc. That said, The Saucy Sailor does little for me and will be joining Cutty Wren in my cutting room. It is followed by a piece of Spanish origin which is sort of OK I guess, but does not offer much demand to stay in my library, so that is the middle third laid waste.
The Downfall of Charing Cross is more promising, though - a darker song, it still has an element of the spiky playing that characterised the opening two tracks and generated a good impression. It swells and contracts nicely in volume and in arrangement and whilst the edge on the accordion playing is sharper than I would like the song works, generates a decent atmosphere before giving way to something that really fits a view of a traditional English folk song with ample fiddling and communal singing. I can fully understand why some people would find The Cropper Lads and its ilk difficult to appreciate outside of live performance, but somehow it is this sort of folk that has captured my heart in the last decade despite me not moving in any social circles where it is really appreciated. That appreciation is not universal, and songs and tunes still need to be played well generally, but my chief interest was sparked by Spiers and Boden where that was guaranteed. There is enough in most of the tracks performed on this album to meet my approval, though none of them have really made me go "wow".
There are plenty of nice touches at start and end of this record - it is just a pity about that middle. I am currently listening to the title track and this is, I think, the best so far in terms of its construction - powerful, atmospheric, tuneful and catchy all at once, it feels like everything comes together synergistically in a way that does not quite hold true for the other songs on the album. The disc ends with a fiddle-and accordion based number, a sort of slow dance tune that gives way to a faster paced song just shy of two minutes in. The lift in pace improves it, for purely as a tune it was too slow to be interesting. The song itself is pretty dull but the evolution of the tune with it keeps a nice feel to the track as a whole and it is not an unsatisfying end to the album.
I have enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to, a quarter of it disappointed significantly and has been excised as a result but the remaining 9 tracks sit quite happily amongst the gamut of folk music in my collection.
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