Post by James SftBH on Sept 28, 2007 0:55:53 GMT 1
Songs from the Blue House "Tree" (High Barn 2007)
Cult takes over Tree
This is the third full length from Suffolk band Songs from the Blue House, the second one was called ‘Too’, geddit? There’s about a million of them in the band, well 11 or so, and it wouldn’t be unfair to call them a kind of ‘folk collective’. With such a large number of musicians involved it must be stiff competition to get a song on the record, it seems to be James Partridge that owns the football since he gets eight writing credits, Shane Kirk’s next with seven, those two both produced. They also take lead vocals on most of the songs. The common aspect of the multi-headed beast is that the general style is modern Brit folk (as opposed to traditional Brit folk) with pop, country, and alt-country undertones, the latter two dragged into the argument by Nick Zala’s fine pedal steel . The biggest shocker on the record is a folk take on the Blue Oyster Cult’s vampire classic ‘(Dont Fear) The Reaper’, now while revamping heavy rock in other musical genres is nothing new, in fact it’s almost a requirement these days for any right thinking acoustic troubadour to trot out ‘The Ace Of Spades’ or ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, this one however really pulls it off. It’s as though the original was the cover, and the Songs from the Blue House version is as nature intended, the subtleties of the acoustic instruments and the sweet vocal harmonies all work perfectly. If such things as singles, airplay, charts and hits were still around this should be doing all that.
The down side of such a sparkling cover of an extraordinary song is that the band’s own songs are a bit thin by comparison. Least pleasing is ‘Song V’, which does a sort of country road travellin’ man thing but based in Britain, ‘Looking out over the Humber’ it starts, then goes on about ‘black top hummin’’, that just sounds wrong. ‘Vanilla’ is similar but manages to be less grating because it has US place names, as always, San Antone’s in there, a town chock full of disgruntled empty pocketed musos looking for bus stations, jumping box cars etc.. Helen Mulley sings lead on a couple of songs and it would have been nice to hear more of her, ‘Kings and Gods’ is particularly fine, a nicely understated performance by all, the cello providing the perfect mood. Occasionally things get dangerously ‘Lady In Red’, such as the smoochy ‘In My Arms’ and ‘Little Lies’, but they just about get away with it, the band are better when they don’t aim for the middle of the road, ‘Don’t Lose’ has a Nick Drake air to it, which is a very good thing to flush thoughts of the DeBurgh from your head. The album closer is ‘Come On #2 (Live From Northern Quebec)’, the Quebec thing is telling reference (google it if you don’t know!), this one is more trad folk than anything else on the record, listening to it feels like a fine old beer sodden time in a crowded pub, the band are clearly very good at this. Overall ‘Tree’ is a mixture, as you might expect from a band of many, some things work well, others are harder to live with, but it’s always interesting and I’m sure a live show would be well worth seeking out.
Date review added: Sunday, September 23, 2007
Reviewer: Patrick Wilkins
Reviewers Rating:
6/10
Cult takes over Tree
This is the third full length from Suffolk band Songs from the Blue House, the second one was called ‘Too’, geddit? There’s about a million of them in the band, well 11 or so, and it wouldn’t be unfair to call them a kind of ‘folk collective’. With such a large number of musicians involved it must be stiff competition to get a song on the record, it seems to be James Partridge that owns the football since he gets eight writing credits, Shane Kirk’s next with seven, those two both produced. They also take lead vocals on most of the songs. The common aspect of the multi-headed beast is that the general style is modern Brit folk (as opposed to traditional Brit folk) with pop, country, and alt-country undertones, the latter two dragged into the argument by Nick Zala’s fine pedal steel . The biggest shocker on the record is a folk take on the Blue Oyster Cult’s vampire classic ‘(Dont Fear) The Reaper’, now while revamping heavy rock in other musical genres is nothing new, in fact it’s almost a requirement these days for any right thinking acoustic troubadour to trot out ‘The Ace Of Spades’ or ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, this one however really pulls it off. It’s as though the original was the cover, and the Songs from the Blue House version is as nature intended, the subtleties of the acoustic instruments and the sweet vocal harmonies all work perfectly. If such things as singles, airplay, charts and hits were still around this should be doing all that.
The down side of such a sparkling cover of an extraordinary song is that the band’s own songs are a bit thin by comparison. Least pleasing is ‘Song V’, which does a sort of country road travellin’ man thing but based in Britain, ‘Looking out over the Humber’ it starts, then goes on about ‘black top hummin’’, that just sounds wrong. ‘Vanilla’ is similar but manages to be less grating because it has US place names, as always, San Antone’s in there, a town chock full of disgruntled empty pocketed musos looking for bus stations, jumping box cars etc.. Helen Mulley sings lead on a couple of songs and it would have been nice to hear more of her, ‘Kings and Gods’ is particularly fine, a nicely understated performance by all, the cello providing the perfect mood. Occasionally things get dangerously ‘Lady In Red’, such as the smoochy ‘In My Arms’ and ‘Little Lies’, but they just about get away with it, the band are better when they don’t aim for the middle of the road, ‘Don’t Lose’ has a Nick Drake air to it, which is a very good thing to flush thoughts of the DeBurgh from your head. The album closer is ‘Come On #2 (Live From Northern Quebec)’, the Quebec thing is telling reference (google it if you don’t know!), this one is more trad folk than anything else on the record, listening to it feels like a fine old beer sodden time in a crowded pub, the band are clearly very good at this. Overall ‘Tree’ is a mixture, as you might expect from a band of many, some things work well, others are harder to live with, but it’s always interesting and I’m sure a live show would be well worth seeking out.
Date review added: Sunday, September 23, 2007
Reviewer: Patrick Wilkins
Reviewers Rating:
6/10