Robb Johnson
Album: Bring Down The Moon
Label: Irregular
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.robbjohnson.co.uk

I've saved my rant about Robb's relative lack of national exposure for my companion piece covering his other new album, "West Pier Serenade", this review will be just that, a review of the slices of life and history that make up "Bring Down The Moon".

Robb Johnson really is an exceptional writer in the folk tradition in that he focuses most of his songs on people places and events, both ordinary and extraordinary. The music that accompanies his words call in at a number of slots on the acoustic spectrum, folk, jazz, blues etc.

Robb is an artist that knows how to use phrases, to turn a song on a six pence, "On The Road From Babylon", for instance starts out as if it's just a commentary on the standardisation of towns and high streets around the country, but before you know it the song has been expanded to take into account the standardisation of ideas from parties in the mainstream and the need to confirm constantly being spouted in the media.

Whilst "Alice Annie Wheeldon" focuses on the sort of historical figure that those self same politicians would rather England didn't remember, i.e. a socialist, that believed WW1 was wrong and had the courage to stand by her convictions and who had the audacity to question what the establishment was doing, to the point that said establishment had her convicted on trumped up charges, you can also feel the echoes of Hillsborough and 'weapons of mass destruction lies' permeating their way through the songs without being named.

Needless to say there are also the songs that highlight the attempts by the establishment to get poor turning on poorer rather than focusing their anger on the society at the top, with their 'legal' tax avoidance schemes, salting away far more money than the comparative amounts defrauded from the social service budget.

The great thing about the way Robb writes, is that he does it in a way that's entertaining and makes you think rather than doing it in a preachy in your face way, that other artists do. "Welcome To Mugsborough" is a song about the bread and circus techniques of distracting the public, using the buoyancy of the Olympics, for example to push through unpopular changes when the media has focused minds elsewhere.

Robb Johnson is an idealist, with a love of life, he thinks we deserve a better life than the one foisted on us, that if society was fairer, we would all be happier and that's reflected in his songs, it's also why his songs about injustice and greed are so hard hitting.

"Bring Down The Moon" is as fine an example of songwriting as you'll find anywhere. If Shakespeare had written four and five minute songs, he'd be Robb Johnson.

Neil King