OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'BONESETTERS'
'The Blood Is Up'   

-  Label: 'Chartist Records'
-  Genre: 'Alt/Country' -  Release Date: '5th November 2015'

Our Rating:
Bonesetters have been around for a good few years now. I first reviewed them live back in the Myspace days but only now have they managed to release their debut album, The Blood Is Up.

Is this timing to do with main Bonesetter Rhys being made redundant? Well not totally as the album was in production long before that happened, but knowing this bit of background does add to the lyrical impact of this album of Anti-folk protest songs.

Rhys' vocals can at times be an acquired taste but they always have a point to get across. The opener Highground questions all sorts of moral positions of dubious intent over some nicely strummed guitar and some cool sax breaks. Lebanese Huli Bar, meanwhile, while nominally about hanging out and eating Hummus and tabouli etc also tosses in some barbed lyrics about the middle east's tragic history and suggests you try Lebanese speed dating. Hmm.

No Other Bugger (for Teddy) is a twisted anti-war song that is angry and filled with bile for the arms industry among other things and is assisted by some nice slide guitar. Coal Dust Blues is the most straightforward protest song on the album and has been in the Bonesetters live set for quite a while. It's lively and a wry look at the reasons for closing all those pits with some interesting use of stereo effects and positioning of the vocals in the mix.

Good Ship An Yue Jiang is about the Chinese ship that caused all sorts of controversy as its cargo of munitions destined for Zimbabwe was turned away by protesters at the port of Durban. Well what else would you want to sing about?

OK, then try Maggie Thatcher who gets skewered on She Was Only A Shop Keeper's Daughter. The lyrics contain a good list of what she flogged off and who she helped with some weird "yea ha's" to add to the despair of what she wrought upon the United Kingdom while getting stabbed in the back by her own men.

Reivers has been one of the bands central songs for years; it's good to hear it finally properly recorded. I didn't dig out the lyric sheets I have for it to check if the words have been updated as Rhys sings about what the Reivers will do to us. This is a deft updating of the cross-border raiders of ancient legend that would raid on either side of the Scottish/English boarder and here is applied to the trans-national corporate raiders.

A North Pacific Trash Vortex is asking questions about the mountains of rubbish floating around the oceans killing wildlife. Do No Harm is asking the medical community to try to do no harm and also for lots of other people to try to do some good every once in a while and at one point Rhys vocals not only sound in tune but almost choral to boot.

The album closes with Windmills. This seems to have re-worked the guitar part to Stairway to Heaven as the lyrics go on about all sorts of things that are going wrong with the environment and the oceans. Fair enough and all and besides, how many other songs are there already about the plight of the Whiting in our seas?

Find out more at Bonesetters Bandcamp page
  author: simonovitch

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



BONESETTERS - The Blood Is Up