The band I have seen most often over the last eight or so years is unquestionably Bellowhead. There have been some truly memorable performances along the way, up there with anything I’ve seen in 40 years of gig going. In fact, I’ll carry the fond memories of two sold out New Years Eve shows on London’s Southbank, the BBC filmed Christmas spectacular at Shoreditch Town Hall with the Unthanks, the hot and sweaty album launch at the tiny Water Rats to my final curtain call.
It’s probably unfair to expect the sheer brio of the live experience to translate to record and a variety of different approaches to capturing their essence on disc have been tried. I’d still wager that all of Bellowhead’s recordings, even E.P.Onymous, their first effort, rank as very good to excellent. Thus, with recent cause to revisit Matachin, I thoroughly enjoyed it’s slightly more serious outlook. By contrast, the last two albums, both produced by John Leckie, have come closest to capturing the live spirit of the band. Hedonism in particular has an organic flow of performance, whilst second of those, Broadside, pushed the band to experiment and to make the most of their massed voices, with all 11 members contributing to the vocal chorus arrangements, which by turn fed into the subsequent live shows.
If there is a quibble with all of this (and you might call this picky), it’s that each record seems to capture a different aspect of the band. It may be a function of me being too close to the music, yet arguably each record is as distinct as the artwork it’s dressed in. I know that there are others amongst my most favoured bands for whom this is also true and often it’s what maintains the interest over a career in music (remember those?). It’s just that the arrival of Revival has put it all into sharp focus with a bull’s-eye maximum, as it’s a hairs breadth away from perfection and the most holistic distillation of what makes this band so great.
Most of you will have a good understanding of what the band are all about, but for anyone unsure they are the folk big band. A four piece horn section includes Ed Neuhauser’s Tuba as the bass instrument, augmented by Rachel Mc Shane’s cello. They boast a versatile, flexible and highly talented front line of fiddles, melodeon, guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, banjo and oboe and one of the most inventive and unusual percussionists going, Pete Flood, a specialist in the use of household implements for beats and more. Jon Boden is of course the charismatic lead vocalist, but it is what they do together with their individual skills, which is both special and so much fun.
It’s worth making the point that they work almost exclusively with the English folk tradition, with a couple of notable exceptions here. The arrangements are mostly Jon’s but Pete has three and Sam Sweeney one and like all of the best acts working with the tradition, they manage to make the age of the material an irrelevance. If you want more insight into their methods and the different approach to making this record then it’s well worth checking out the exclusive Q & A that we did with Pete, which offers a nice mix of into both Bellowhead’s and his own creative impulse (read it here). There are also some nicely informative liner notes that set the songs in context.
Were it in my gift to take on any doubting Thomas or Bellowhead refusenik, I think Revival might just be my trump card. It speaks volumes about the development of their sound and also perhaps catches them at a point where technology has opened up the world of possibility in their modus. Equally, they are 10 years into a career and have therefore sharpened their collective instincts for what works to a pin-point and producer Rupert Christie has managed to capture that in all its glory.
As much as they have a special relationship with English folksong, shanties, sailors misbehaving ashore and other songs of the sea are a particularly strong suit for Bellowhead. The openers, Let her Run and Roll Alabama fit the oeuvre as instant Bellowhead classics. It’s also no surprise that the opener on side two of the vinyl, (as it’s that which I have the particular pleasure of listening to), is Gosport Nancy, the first single. It’s one of two songs of the C20th, albeit with an unknown author, which all but cements its place in the folksong canon, by virtue of being anon. It also spent some time on the Radio 2 play list, proving an effective calling card for the album.
In folksong style, there is still room for drinking in Let Union Be, death and revenge in Fine Sally and Greenwood Side, the power of nature in Seeds Of Love, some surrealistic bedlam via Bond in Moon Kittens and some magical riddling in Rosemary Lane, which is a version of the same mystical song-thread as Scarborough Fair. There’s also one tune arranged by Sam Sweeney called Jack Lintel, which builds nicely in intensity and complexity. The skill in the delivery of Revival is that in a typically Bellowhead way, none of the music is quite what you expect, yet it is all entirely what it can and should be, pure excitement from start to finish.
The one cut I haven’t mentioned is something of a departure for the band in that it’s Richard Thompson’s I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. It’s timely given Bellowhead’s signing to Island Records, but also a cracking version and a perfect fit on Revival and will doubtless become another live classic. It also plays on the heady nostalgia that the vinyl creates, bringing back that magic moment of getting home, slipping the record from its sleeve, cranking up the volume and realising that you’ve just managed to find another long playing gem. Revival is exactly that, Bellowhead at their best and there is nothing better than that.
Review by: Simon Holland
Performing Roll Alabama on Paul O’Grady
Gosport Nancy (via Deezer)
Tour Dates & Festivals
JULY
05 LUDLOW ARTS FESTIVAL
06 HOP FARM
AUGUST
15 FOLK EAST
16 BEAUTIFUL DAYS
17 WICKHAM FESTIVAL
18 NEWQUAY LUSTY GLAZE
19 WOLVERHAMPTON ROBIN
20 TUNBRIDGE WELLS ASSEMBLY HALL
21 ST ALBANS ARENA
22 GALTRES PARKLANDS FESTIVAL
23 CARFEST SOUTH
24 WATCHET FESTIVAL
25 SHREWSBURY FOLK FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER
07 HALIFAX VICTORIA THEATRE
08 SHEFFIELD CITY HALL
09 BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY HALL
10 LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC
11 GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL
12 YORK BARBICAN
13 GATESHEAD SAGE
14 YEOVIL WESTLANDS
15 SOUTHAMPTON GUILDHALL
16 PLYMOUTH PAVILIONS
18 BRIGHTON DOME
19 READING HEXAGON
20 LONDON SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE
21 CAMBRIDGE CORN EXCHANGE
22 LEAMINGTON SPA ASSEMBLY
23 BRISTOL COLSTON HALL
25 MARGATE WINTER GARDENS
26 CARDIFF ST DAVID’S HALL
27 NORTHAMPTON DERNGATE
28 SOUTHEND CLIFFS PAVILION
29 NORWICH OPEN
DECEMBER
05 SKEGNESS GREAT BRITISH FOLK FESTIVAL
Revival is released 30 June via Island Records
Order the Deluxe Edition via Amazon
