Reviews

Artist: The Cubical
Album: It Ain't Human
Label: Cargo/Halfpenny
Tracks: 10
Website:http://www.myspace.com/thecubicalthecubical

Liverpool's musicians have always had a thing about rough 'n' ready country music, maybe it's something to do with the city's Irish community and a love of great storytelling. There's also a strong strain of the whimsical, the fantastical and the downright ludicrous that flows as strong as the Mersey right back to early-60s proto-skiffle outfits like the Roadrunners and the Gin Mill Group.

Throw in a fondness for herbal flights of fancy and you have the key that unlocks The La's, Coral and Zutons - not to mention The Beatles, of course.

All of which goes to place The Cubical's sophomore album in some kind of context.

If their debut, Come Sing These Crippled Tunes, readily doffed its cap to The Stooges, Pretty Things and The Stairs (remember them?), this second set is swampier, darker and all-too at ease with its madness. It invokes the spirit of Don Van Vliet and more recent Scouse layabouts like Of Arrowe Hill as it deals in gumbo blues of the kind Dr John revelled in on Gris-Gris and propels a differently-sane take on Johnny Cash's railroad rock 'n' roll.

All the while a cast of rapscallions and mythical bohemians populate songs like Rag Time Army, Are We Just Lovers?, Three Drop Jameson Mechanism and the unsettling closing fable, The Myth of Willie McGrath.

It's boss, la', boss…

Nick Churchill

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