Reviews

Artist:Simon Stanley Ward And The Shadows Of Doubt
Album: Rocket In The Desert
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.simonstanleyward.com/

Dedicated to their late bassist who passed shortly after recording his parts in the hospice where he was staying, Ward's also joined by guitarist Paul Lush from Danny and The Champions of the World and drummer Neil Marsh for an album that's firmly rooted in the twangier aspects of UK Americana's poppier inclinations where chords cascade and guitars chime.

As such, it opens with the Bo Diddley rhythmic shuffle of 'I'm a Worrier' which about living with anxiety, pretty much sums itself up in the opening lines "Always thinking of the worst, I'm a worrier/Give me a bubble and I'll make it burst". Which leads neatly into the twangy rockabilly 'This Ain't It' which, about writing songs, opens with "All we need is a hit record/One song to get that break/And it must be put there somewhere/We're gonna do whatever it takes/And our lives are gonna change when we write it/All the money will all roll in/We'll get a million views on YouTube" but quickly reverts to shades of pessimistic songwriter grey to declare "But This Ain't It …Surely that is clear this one ain't even near".

It's on then to the plangent chords introducing us to 'Tony' who clearly has been hanging out with early Dylan, Orbison, The Four Seasons and maybe even The Shangri-Las though it does also throw in mentions of Carly Simon, Woodstock, American painter Georgia O'Keefe, 60s London fashion store Biba and, for gigging musicians, 60s Greek Street folk and blues club Les Cousins and the Betsy Trotwood in Whitstable Bay. I kinda hope 'Warm Leatherette' is a reference to the 1978 Daniel Miller track by The Normal or at least the Grace Jones cover.

And by way of something completely different, not to mention cheekily borrowing from Fleetwood Mac's 'Everywhere', the title track is about how, under the right conditions, you can grow rocket in the Sahara (Erg Chigaga in Morocco is mentioned) and camels will come from miles around to eat. It is, of course, also about creativity in unusual places, but I think the former is more rock n roll. Speaking of which, they strap on the Elvis leathers for the swaggery 'Bigfoot Baby', complete with a Scotty Moore solo, apparently something he wrote for a Camden Fringe one man show called "How I Found and Captured Bigfoot During Lockdown". And to avoid accusations of cultural bias, it does note it's also known as "The Sasquatch, the Almasty, the Orang Pendek/The Wingago, the Boogyman and the Great Yowie/The Abominable Snowman and the Florida Skunk Ape/The Wildman and the Woodwose and the Big Yeti", though none those quite have the same musical cadence!

A song in praise of "the non-drinking heroes who get us home safe", 'Designated Driver' motors down the late 70s pub rock "highway of love" with Dire Straits in the passenger seat and is possibly the only song to ever mention the DVLA in its lyrics. Unexpectedly, it all bursts into wah wah funkiness for 'Deadheading', not perhaps the musical genre you might associate with a song about being taught gardening by your wife ("I've got sticky fingers baby, been out for hours/Clearing up the mess from yesterday's flowers/It's the price you pay for a fruit for bloom/If you wanna smell the roses, then you gotta make room/Making space for tomorrow petals waiting in the wings"). Again, in a quest to include cultural references that will baffle anyone outside the UK, this one mentions Monty Don. The message of course is, while you may be getting older and not in prime bloom, "Don't Go to Seed".

And from Gardeners World to Strictly, they slip on their 'Terpsichorean Footwear', here designed by Tom Petty, to go out dancing and grabbing life while your toes can still tap ("No more standing at the back/While others have their fun/Too many years of wondering what I could have begun"), dance, of course, being an age old courting ritual ("It's time to stand up/And start this long overdue courtship display/Like the antelope/On the African plain/I'm gonna move my feet and drive you insane").

Inevitably, there's a lockdown number, this being the perky shuffling 'When September Comes' which, opening with a peal of bells disguised as guitar notes, recalls when, back in 2021, it was optimistically believed it would be all over by autumn ("we'll be together again/When the leaves start falling"). It ends, then, with the jaunty Irish folk strummed sounding 'Loving You', the only song written after Geoff died and also around the time Ward became a father, as such taking to musing on being a parent ("Everything changed in that moment when I first saw you/Something deep inside shifted, it was like I had been split in two/There's a Supernova up there in the midnight sky/It took a billion years to put a twinkle in your eye") but ultimately having to let them leave the nest ("I know you cannot forever be with me/Cos a ship is safe in the harbour but it's built for the sea") but "Sure as the ocean is deep and the sky is blue/This time tomorrow I'll be Loving You".

Affectionately retro in its sound and influences, playful but with serious undercurrents, it's purpose built for those rare days when you can wind down the car windows and crank up the volume as you take to the open road. You know, it might just be the one after all.

Mike Davies

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