Reviews
Craig Gould & The Noble Thieves Album: Live At Beckview Studios
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 6
Website: https://www.craiggouldmusic.com/
Lining up as Burton-on-Trent frontman Gould backed by vocalist Rosie Faith, bassist Lee Cogswell and drummer Jonny Peters, this is a sort of stop gap until their sophomore studio album Songs of Love and War next year. Released in both audio and visual formats, it pairs three new songs with three fan favourites off their 2023 debut Songs from the Campfire which figured in the Top 20 of the UK's Official Americana, Folk and Indie Breakers charts.
It kicks off with one of the latter, a near six-minute strum through the loping mental health-themed 'Out Of The Woods', though without the album's fiddle, followed by two of the new numbers. The trotalong 'Old Days' is a wistful reflection on getting older and wiser, disembarking from the "amber sea" as the narrator tells how he " danced on bars and under stars" but also "slept in parks and back of cars/Been awoke by law/Been shown the door". It's a realisation that "I'm not without knowing, had to change my ways before I die" and that "I'll never go/That way again". Even so, while "Time, on my face is showing" there's a sense of pride that "I've lived a life and not a lie". The twangier country chug 'My Front Porch Neighbourhood' is also reflective, looking back on a life looking for direction and a purpose ("all us kids born back in '83/Made to pick a career at 15/Didn't know what the hell we wanna be") with a string of dead end jobs in the rearview mirror ("I worked in science laboratories and condom packing factories/Been a ticketing guru, railroad big-shoe, crocodile making man/I met the queen and the duke, and delivered fresh fruit, to the 100s locked away/Dressed in style, for a while, swept cinema aisles, and fanned the flames of political game/Once a gold crown shaping, furniture creating, bin-man extraordinaire"), with music his rock ("Singing songs of love on our front porch neighbourhood") even if "me and a guitar seems a world too far for philosophy to comprehend", as he notes "It worries me how you judge by employee/When you can celebrate the songs that we sing".
The two other 'Campfire' tracks, 'Dreamers', the mid-tempo ballad from whence the band name comes, and the jaunty country romper Burned, a tale of a Friday night's drinking session down the pub and trying to pick up a girl who's "prevailed by currency", sandwich the melancholic deep twang slow waltzer 'Red River', where Faith steps into the spotlight, a love song ("just believe me/Just run away with me!/Never let go, and run away/The dance never ending") with Neil Young undertones. Fully capturing the fire and passion of the live shows, this radiates the band's power and confidence, and cranks anticipation for the album to the max
Mike Davies
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