Reviews

Lisa Marie Glover
Album: Einzelkind
Label: Self Released
Tracks:10
Website: http://www.lisamarieglover.co.uk

If Bellowhead were but a five piece, I suspect that they would sound not too dissimilar to Bag Of Rats. Less instrumentation gives the songs more of a rough and ready feel, less instruments allows the music to have a looser feel than a band with members in double figures can have.

"Ever After Nothing" is an album that feels it's been made by a band with a real passion for traditional folk music and a real desire to drive it forward so that it feels and vibrant, a chance to interpret tunes that most folk fans know and give them that something different that makes it feel like the band owns them. For the most part, Bag Of Rats more than meet their objectives.

These are then blended with contemporary folk songs and songs penned by the band's own Mike Hall, with the album stitched together seamlessly as it pulls together socialist ideals from several hundred year' of history, songs about hard time and individuals and communities fight to survive them.

It says something that for all the sophistication of the last hundred odd years, little has changed in the way social justice impacts on the working man, the words may change, but not the rhetoric. If you were new to the folk, folk rock genre I think you would struggle to date most of the tunes on the album.

Bag Of Rats hail from the West Country, an area that understands more than most about rebellion having formed its own side post civil war, a side that was brutally suppressed and given birth to the trade union movement. The band incorporate that never say day mentality into their music, and I suspect that if I manage to catch the band live, it's something that will reach right into the core of the band.

This album is a celebration of the human spirit, performed by musicians that understand that sometimes it's more important to capture the spirit of a song than get it note for note, a sentiment well summed up in the bands version of "There Is Power In A Union". This comes highly recommended.

Neil King

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