Treacherous Orchestra
Album: Origins
Label: Navigator
Tracks: 9
Website: www.treacherousorchestra.com

Now, that’s more like it…an album that is driven by pure energy! Rather than hide behind the word ‘art’ as some form of defence the Treacherous Orchestra totter dangerously close to the edge without ever once falling off the precipice. With the colours of their Scottish roots proudly nailed to the mast the second track prepares the listener for a Celtic onslaught not unlike the battle cry of Robert Wallace about ready to do battle with the X-Box generation.

The brooding power chords drone and fiddle melody of “March Of The Troutsmen” makes you rock with it’s pumping crescendo leading you into the pipes driven “Sheepskins Beeswax/Taybank Shenanigans/Superfly”. Unfortunately I wonder if it was a wise choice of segue between the minor/major key change on the first and second tune in the set which proves a little too much of a shock for lesser souls like me but then again you can’t put a good tune down and, after all it’s only a matter of taste.

With a ‘Glasgow Kiss’ (musically speaking) that would make anyone with a Scottish heritage proud the band features (amongst others) the pipes of Ross Ainslie and Eamonn Coyne’s banjo and credentials that would make other groups green with envy. Rather like an all-instrumental Scottish eleven-piece version of Bellowhead I’m sure the orchestra are as flamboyant as their name suggests and I for one can’t wait to see them performing live.

Pete Fyfe