Reviews
Artist:Dom Prag Album: Needle And Thread
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://domprag.bandcamp.com/
Opener "Van Dieman's Land" with its confident vocal line and huge sounding guitar notes, with echoes of Carthy, Jones and Gaughan, holds you from the start. Dom Prag takes well tried ingredients, armed with the guitar and voice he makes a very visceral and arresting sound. "The Brisk Lad", a haunting song is pared back to a powerful resonant guitar and Dom's sometimes solo roaring voice. Echoes of his classical guitar roots contrast with huge percussive thumps on the acoustic guitar's body behind that gripping voice. A tender, reflective version of "Lovely William" is just as compelling.
A vocal trio of Dom, Rowan Piggott and Rosie Hogston, harmonise on a fine rousing "Fosters Mill". "South Medomsley Strike", with the feel of "Lily The Pink", is a vicious song by Tommy Armstrong the Pitman Poet, its sweetened by Tom Evans' accordion and Phil Beer and Odette Mitchell's vocals. Similarly charged is Armstrong's "Oakey Strike Evictions" given a real Oysterband thump and roar by Dom's strident guitar and brother Richard's drums. What might turn out to be Prag's "Streets Of London" is the chilling "The Shoemender" with its everytown description of the loss of local trades, replaced by coffee shops and empty windows in the face of rising costs and ring road retail parks. If the chorus, over Joely Koos stunning cello, doesn't resonate with you, then you are lucky.
The song is followed by "The Shoemender's Tune" and "George Brabazon 1st air", tunes by Prag and O'Carolan, showcases for beautiful guitar, cello and Phil Beer's fiddle. The ethereal strings of Rowan Piggot, opens the warm lockdown song, "Come All You Fine Young People". Similar sentiments of community, as shared in "The Shoemender" are beautifully delivered by Dom, Rowan Piggott and Rosie Hodgston's vocals (The Wilderness Yet) and a string quartet.
"Needle And Thread" is a fragile, but ultimately uplifting song about real emotions with one of the most compelling guitar hooks since Paul Simon's "Old Friends, After Folk and Folk Rock roar the album ends on an intimate personal and raw note.
Marc Higgins
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The Shoemender
Fatea Showcase Sessions
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