A bit of a wander from my usual tastes for this review, still nothing like a bit of change to do the soul good hence my discovery (cheers Stuart) of Junkman’s Choir.
Imagine a melting pot that takes in the influence of The Pogues, Flogging Molly a touch of The Clash (and later Strummer as well), maybe some Paul Weller while tiny shades of Nick Cave hover in the background and that gives you grounding as to what Junkman’s Choir are all about.
In today’s pop market where message and story are often secondary to what a track is about, it’s nice to see a band bringing the storytelling tradition back in nice bite sized three minute chunks. The band mixes a blend of acoustic folk with shards of accordion and pot and kettle style percussion.
Lyrically it’s a festival of stories, there’s a dense poetry to some of the lyrics and some lovely turns of phrase in many of the songs (Hogweed John bears close scrutiny for this), and an energy in some of the performances that suggest this lot could be a fine live prospect (check out The Spike to see what I mean). Musically it has to be said the band are lock tight and there is a real consistency of performance across the album.
While the album delivers some worthy content (Gaun, The Baptist Song found favour with me) it has to be said that they don’t strike gold every single time. Tracks like Wide Blue Yonder has a touch of the clich?d about it in a Bryan Adams Summer of 69 kind of way. Still elsewhere its tracks like Mad Elaine that make up for any shortcomings with their effervescent buzz of guitars mingled with the chatty accordion melodies.
If you’re looking for something a little bit different then this might be worthy of your attention. Steel Linin’ Chant is available from the bands website (link below) and check back with their myspace page for any up and coming dates.
