Rusty Shackle
Album: Wash Away These Nights
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: www.rustyshackle.com

Having enjoyed Rusty Shackle's "Hounds Of Justice" EP and having seen the band take a hall of fifteen hundred odd people, who wouldn't have known them from Adam, and turn them into a hall of whooping gyrating fans, I was expecting shed loads from Newport's finest debut album, I was not to be disappointed.

If the reaction the band got from their appearance at the Great British Folk Festival is anything to go by, twenty twelve is going to be a good year for Rusty Shackle, cemented and reinforced by a pretty damn impressive debut album.

Genre prostitution is a major feature of "Wash Away These Nights", rock, pop, gospel, blues, rockabilly, skiffle, are all thrown into the melting pot to produce an album that celebrates the art of having a good time. This is an album that will drive both mood and temperature skyward, to the point of sizzling and then some, but in the process of getting scorched, take some time to listen to the lyrics, because there's some great sentiments being expressed.

There's a boundless enthusiasm for music captured on these tracks, but it's not at the expense of the song, all of the components are there, lyric, melody, it's hard to believe that you're listening to a band, that have amongst their number someone that admits to buying "Mr Blobby" as their first ever single, don't hold it against them :-)

A five piece pretty much set up with the instrumentation of a bluegrass band and a drummer, this is band that really have understood what contemporary folk music is about and aimed it for the big stage with a big sound. At times fiddle driven, at times more guitar orientated, "Wash Away These Nights" is an album around which a band can build a reputation and whilst it may not be the most sophisticated sound you'll ever here, the band have pulled off quite a debut by anyone's standards and laid down a marker as a band to keep your ear out for in the Olympic year.

Neil King