Reviews
Artist:Phil Hooley Album: Songs From The Backroom
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.musicglue.com/phil-hooley/
Frontman and founder of alt-country outfit The Woolgatherers, this is Hooley's debut album on which collaborators include no less than Robert Vincent. Citing the like of Prine, Lowe and Guy Clark among his influences, he has a suitably dusty and grained life-worn voice, one which, on the opening pedal steel coloured track, 'Learning To Be Still', evokes instant thoughts of Mark Knopfler.
He's in more laid back mood for 'That Same Old Song', a mid-tempo country cocktail laced with a shake of Randy Newman and featuring harmonica and a fine dobro solo, but then comes the album's tour de force, the storytelling six minute Vincent duet of 'Midasville', the allegorical story of a forgotten town with a population stuck in limbo. Lyrically powerful, built around a nagging melody and arranged with brooding atmospherics, it's one of the best songs I've heard this year.
It does, however, mean the album peaks early as nothing can quite match up. Not that the material is in any sense weak, and his relaxed delivery and warm vocals ensure it's always very listenable, with numbers, such as the strumalong 'Mystery' and the violin brushed piano ballad 'River of Dreams' exactly the sort of thing you want to soothe you into another glass of red wine as you sink into the armchair. 'Maybe Later' has a finger-snapping, brushed snares and double bass arrangement that evokes the retro jazzy sound of Willie Nelson while 'Come Home' marries piano and guitar twang to similar country chill out effect.
By contrast, he cranks up the ringing guitars for the jaunty stridelong beat of 'Pour Me A Drink' where the line "pour me a drink and I'll pour out my heart" shows he can trade country music word play with the best.
It ends on further laid back notes with the five minute early Clark-inspired dusty shuffle of 'Trust Your Heart', a definite runner-up in the highlights stakes, and, aptly enough, opening with aching fiddle and fingerpicked acoustic, the unapologetically wistful song of love and loss ' It's Time We Said Goodbye'. Unfussy and to an extent unpolished, which adds to its charm, it may not be one you have on repeat play, but it's one you will always go back to like meeting an old friend.
Mike Davies
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