Quiet Loner
Album: Greedy Magicians
Label: Little Red Rabbit
Tracks: 11
Website: http://quietloneruk.wordpress.com/

Having delivered Americana UK's album of the year, "Secret Ruler Of The World" back in 2004, we had to wait six years for the follow up, "Spectrology", fortunately, Quiet Loner, hasn't kept us waiting quite so long this time around, "Greedy Magicians" coming just two years later.

I met Matt Hill(Quiet Loner), roughly a year ago with some mutual friends at a pub in London and found him to be an honest and straight talking guy, he takes that approach to his music. Music can be and some would say should be, not only a reflection of the time it was recorded in, but also a moving force for making the case for change and indeed the events that could bring that about.

Quiet Loner definitely doesn't hold back. He lines up both barrels at the institution of state and lets rip. This is not an album for shrinking violets, "Greedy Magicians" is an album that is political with both a little and a big p.

Perhaps it would be a little hypocritical for this album to have been recorded in a full blown studio with all the appropriate wizardry, which is why the album was recorded live in a church with a small audience present, keeping it back to basics, what you hear is what you heard. The same approach is taken right through, the sleeve is hand printed using the same machines that were used to hand print political pamphlets in the 19th century.

This is an album of real poetry, showing great imagination, casting Cameron as a syphilitic sea captain throwing the sick and dissenters overboard, "The Captain's Diseased", shows a sharp incisive mind. Oswald Mosley and his modern cohorts don't come out of the album too well either, but it's the anti-war song "Unmarked Grave" that makes the greatest impact.

The inspiration for "Unmarked Grave" goes back to some letters that had been written to his great-grandmother during world war one, though the truths expressed in the song have been pretty universal for every conflict before or since, the working man suffers for the failures of the ruling classes.

"Greedy Magicians" is a strong album, it's an album about standing up and being counted, which pretty much means that unless you are Billy Bragg you aren't going to get the airplay you deserve, don't let that put you off. Take a risk go out and get yourself a copy and enjoy a great album, that is both a joy to listen to and poetic in its nature.

Neil King