Morton Valence release their 7th album Black Angel Drifter on 27 November, on legendary UK country label Cow Pie Ltd, established in 1978 by BJ Cole & Hank Wangford
A work of unorthodox ’country’ music, the album is heralded by Black-Eyed Susan.
Co-written with Scottish poet David Cameron – no not him! – the track features a downbeat Gilpin/Hacker (Anne Gilpin & Robert ‘Hacker’ Jessett ) in pure antithesis to your customary love duet, replete with whips, whippets, wildflowers and sadistic priests and played out in the unforgiving shadows of Glasgow and London town.
In his review of their 2014 album ‘Left‘, David Weir declared “Throughout their career, they’ve been compared to Velvet Underground and Pulp and pigeonholed as Pop, Kraut Rock and Punk. They are certainly a band that likes to cover a lot of ground and it’s this melange of musical moments that makes Morton Valence such a refreshingly turbulent listen.” While their sound continues to evolve, that statement becomes ever more relevant.
‘Black Angel Drifter’ features ten songs, ranging from the explosive intro of ‘Skylines Change/Genders Blur’, coming at you like a hybrid of the Jesus and Mary Chain and Ennio Morricone, to a stilted blues lament on ‘Sister Pain’, sad & beautiful love songs, ‘The Visit’, ‘Hymn Four’, to the breathing of fresh discordant life into late 80’s Bob Dylan gothic country vignette, ‘The Man in the Long Black Coat’.
There are an assortment of characters here, be it an old soul looking back on his life, wondering what might’ve been from the perspective of his cell, ‘If I Could Start Again’, or the wayward ‘Black-Eyed Susan’, described above.
With Alan Cook’s sublime pedal steel guitar omnipresent throughout, ‘Black Angel Drifter’ is an alt-country album that puts the rulebook through the shredder and starts again. Morton Valence’s gritty escapism is far too Dickensian to wear the pure Americana badge, rather their brand of urban country is a sparring force to be reckoned with on its own terms giving UK alt-country an authentic new, dynamic voice.
The album will be available on 27 November 2020 on CD and vinyl and to stream or download from all the usual places.