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A fiddle, an acoustic guitar, two voices and an upright bass – a winner for Americana some might say, including this reviewer. Played live in the studio this ten track album is a great intro to Brooks Williams and Aaron Catlow if you haven’t come across them before, and a welcome addition to their previous three albums if you are already a convert.
Featuring five Williams/Catlow originals, four covers and one traditional, the songs blend so well you don’t really know who wrote what without looking at the sleeve.
These songs are also a fine demonstration of how European music influenced Americana before it was coined as a genre, in an age when English and Europeans took their fiddles and cellos and mandolins and accordions to America and disappeared into the Appalachian mountains to cook a brew with guitars and banjos and emerge sometime later with Americana. There is an obvious British folk thread running throughout, and some gypsy jazz type playing too and every track is just a marvel, particularly when you add in the understated vocals and harmonies, except for the track The Ballad Of Hendrix The Cat which is an instrumental, but no less a delight. It is, as my friend Andy Snipper said, Briticana.
These two guys work so well together, each respecting each others space in the song, and nailed to floor by Jon Short on double bass. Sometimes the fiddle and guitar bounce off each other, sometimes they sit back to let the other take over. A real lesson in instrument economics.
Some intriguing story telling permeate the songs, including Tornado Smith about the first Wall Of Death Rider, Working In Wood about a man whose calling is ship building, Rising, about the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene in 2024, and even some fine humour in Bonnie Prince Billy’s Sleeping With The Dogs tonight about being locked out after a particularly imbibed night out, well who hasn’t been there?
A wonderful album of masterful playing and laid back Briticana folk grooves. ****
Review by Andy Sharrocks
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TAILGUNNER War In Heaven (Napalm Records)
FROM ASHES TO NEW Villain (Fiction Records)
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