False Lights
Album: Salvor
Label: Wreckord
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.falselights.co.uk

This CD has languished in my to-do pile for some months! In fact I thought I’d lost it, simply because it came in bare promo-disc form, encased in one of those easily-mislayable plastic sleeves, and it’s only just resurfaced. That’s a shame, because it’s actually really good. Even more surprising that, because the band’s genesis was in a drunken late-night conversation between Sam Carter and Jim Moray in which they lamented the dearth of genuine folk-rock bands and decided then and there to go and form one such outfit. And so, the very next day, striking while the idea was still hot in the memory, they recruited violinist Tom Moore (from Moore Moss Rutter), melodeonist Nick Cooke (from both Jim Moray’s and Kate Rusby’s bands), bassist Jon Thorne (from Lamb) and trusty drummer Sam Nadel (from Sam Carter’s band), all set to make a fine noise cranked up to eleven.

That means guitars fully a-blazing, and rhythm section seriously rocking. Folk-rock you can leap about manically to. And the band clearly have great fun letting rip on this collection of traditional songs. Skewball packs a real punch, with heavy-metal guitars often barely in control of their own destiny fuelled by suitably fierce drumming, and The Banks Of Newfoundland’s forward-charge arguably recalls vintage Oysterband more than anything else. While in complete contrast, even a moment of relative repose like The Indian’s Petition glows with true passion and some rather neat harmonies, at the same time sidestepping any accusations of plodding backbeat. How Can I Keep From Singing?, backed by a lone melodeon, is similarly well reined-in, with just the right degree of raw participation in the vocal embellishments. Then it’s back to the inventively syncopated backbeat territory for Tyne Of Harrow, which scatters your feet all over the dancefloor (and sports a gleefully twangy mid-song break), after which the supercharged Oh Death is driven onward in proto-Led-Zepp fashion with shades of Hendrix. The disc’s epilogue is a blazing hymnal organ-soaked Crossing The Bar that eschews churchy sentimentality for a celebratory samba, crowned by trumpet from guest Nick Malcolm; truly resplendent, and making a glorious conclusion to the disc.

The obligatory instrumental track, The Charlesworth Hornpipe, plays around with light and shade perhaps a little too much to catch fire to the aforementioned dancefloor, but the actual playing remains inspired. If I’ve any minor reservations about this feelgood, vital and entirely necessary re-boot of folk-rock, then they lie with occasional production touches that don’t quite ring true to the 60s/70s spirit, such as the treated vocal rhythms that propel the otherwise well-imagined Wife Of Usher’s Well. But in short, False Lights exemplify one of those few pub-generated “seemed like a good idea at the time” brainwaves that actually pay off brilliantly and excitingly in eventual execution. Bravo!

David Kidman