ROCK 'n' REEL (September / October 08)
The Loins have a great 2 page spread in the Sep / Oct issue of Rock'n'Reel. We've stuck up here, but it's a wonderful mag which fully deserves your support, so don't let that stop you getting your mits on a copy.
Go to www.rock-n-reel.co.uk or pop down your local WHSmiths
|
|
 |
|
|
THE DROWNED MAN RESUSCITATOR
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
||||
| Mojo | Plan B |
Rock'n'Reel |
Rock'n'Reel Live Review |
Reviewed by Lois Wilson - MOJO (Jan 08)
**** (4 stars)
Masterminded in 1990 by Chris Broderick (Vocalist, poet, screenwriter, novella writer), guitarist Arfur Allen and banjo, mandolin and accordion player Rob Shepherd, the Loins aim was to make 'Authentic raw folk from the Medway delta'. Early LP's were recorded in Billy Childish's toilet (for the acoustics), with Bruce Brand and Holly Golightly chiming in. By 1996's 'Clever Clogs & Big Head' they'd parted, only to come together again in 2004 to try again. Thank heavens they did! The Drowned Man Resuscitator, the follow up to 2005's Songs To Hear Before You Die, is the Loins at their very best, combining raucous traditional song (Be Merry!) with heartbreaking outpourings of emotion (My Brother) and salutes to ladies of the night (God Bless The Whores Of Rochester). It's good to have them back!
Reviewed by Everett True - Plan B (August 07)
The Drowned Man Resuscitator is the sort of rabble rousing banjo and mandolin led populist music that the Levellers gave such a bad name to… and yet this 'cut the crap', bawdy, modern day English working class folk band manages the trick of being affecting without lapsing into sentimentalism. Imagine… I dunno The Pogues produced by Liam Watson at Toe Rag, raw-assed folk stripped right back till only the bare bones of emotion and rock remain. Man, this is great.
Sometimes it's out and out boisterous ('God Bless The Whores Of Rochester', 'Be Merry'), sometimes it's out and out romantic (the unashamedly open 'To A Beautiful Woman Growing Older', which reduced me to tears on the first listen), always brimful with sincerity. There's a certain edge, fierceness in Chris Broderick's voice that makes you believe in him; a belief in the blacks and whites of life appeals to this boy who seems to be mostly surrounded by grey… plus a corking pot-shot at Christianity (Why, Lord?), that blares out like a beacon.
The Singing Loins can be as savage as Billy Childish at his most belligerent and are equally as inspirational. This is a fine record indeed.
Reviewed by Sean McGhee in Rock 'n' Reel (Sep 07)
Now extended to a 3 piece, Rochester's very own Singing Loins have developed a particularly effective 3 pronged attack that allows The Drowned Man Resuscitator to reverberate with the kind of earthy, raw melodies that have built their reputation. This time around, though, they've skillfully grafted on a carefully studied song craft and offer a more accessible immediacy that gets you hook, line and sinker, from the word go.
Opening with their own cleverly tongue-in-cheek anthem 'We Are The Singing Loins' and onwards via songs like the evocatively titled 'God Bless The Whores Of Rochester', 'The Topless Twins Of Allhallows On Sea' and 'To A Beautiful Woman Growing Older', they demonstrate a more strident and celebratory confidence. Their unique brand of urban folk, trademarked by a gritty and pithy sound, takes the folk blueprint and creates a music that spans at least the last five decades but still sounds strikingly contemporary - one of the finest examples being ' The Hartlake Bridge Disaster', a trad-styled piece of suitably melancholic atmosphere, whilst their classic sound of clucking banjo, driving guitar and mandolin takes glorious centre stage on 'Be Merry!'
The Singing Loins stand as a sterling reminder of the vigour and inspiration woefully absent elsewhere within the contemporary new acoustic movement.
Reviewed by Everett True in Village Voice (New York)
To A Beautiful Woman Growing Older is this year's most beautiful and honest love song by an unashamedly anti-capitalist, romantic old school English folk band.
SONGS TO HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE
Reviewed by Brian Gillespie in Shite 'n' Onions. www.shitenonions.com
For a fellow known to go randomly off on a tangent from time to time, the latest release from The Singing Loins has left me totally speechless. It's absolutely brilliant. It's raw, it's authentic, It's also one of the most complete albums I've heard in recent years! Trust me, I've had this album for several months now, and I honestly had to calm down before I could even attempt to review it. Sure, you could mention this as a candidate for record of the year, but personally I think it's so timeless it shouldn't matter what bloody year it is. Their sound has that acoustic grit most bands would kill for. Real folk music. True busking troubadours. The Singing Loins play the type of folk music that leaves a ring in your bathtub. Skiffle with soul, so to speak...
Simply put, a true, flawless classic.
Reviewed by Sean McGhee in Punk Oi
"As proof
that you can't keep a good man down, or in this case two, after nearly a decade
Medway's finest return with a new album of acoustic/earthy originals. For
points of reference imagine a mutant fusion of Chas'n'Dave
jamming with the Pogues in a smoky back-street
boozer. This is the authentic sound of the underbelly of Kent, punk
attitude and a drunken swagger. This is folk music given back its balls,
bite and no little bile.
Given the
chance the Singing Loins could do for English folk what the Pogues
did for Irish music, snatch it back from the middle class historians and
musical purists as poignancy, pathos, drama and real life is present within
their songs in abundance. Match with that an ability of the duo to
produce some of the finest gritty yet warm and utterly infectious ballads that reveal an almost psychic understanding of each
other's approach.
There's a dark beauty in the suspenseful "Low November Sun", a swagger and cockiness to "Honest Man", a melodic attractiveness to the delightful "Angel of the Medway", while they revisit with a vengeance previous scenes of glory on "Skinners Rats", that once again bemoans the fate of those working as an underclass for agencies. As ever it's delivered with a bubbling air of anger but an upbeat defiance. Top this off with another Singing Loins sing-along classic in the exuberance of "The Pub On The Corner", a rip-roaring anthem to the dirt and grime of real drinking establishments, "The Chief Constable's missus flat out on the floor/With her legs in the air and her head out the door..." The musical equivalent of a pastie and a pint in a smoky warm bar, where the beer is cold and the women are hot!
BIZARRE
 |
|
| Bizzare had a bit of fun with this old photo. It took us a while to notice. They've shifted Brod's muscular body with the tuba onto Arf's little legs & head, and Arf's skinny body with the dog onto Brod's perfectly proportioned legs and superhero face. (I expect Arf will come back with something here) | |
LIVE REVIEW - PORTLAND ARMS, CAMBRIDGE, April 06. www.rhythmonline.co.uk
The band we were most keen to see were Medway's Singing Loins, in a rare live appearance. This was just lovely enthralling stuff. With the feel of a series of 1950's kitchen-sink dramas put to music, or the real relevant/authentic sound of English folk (they have been compared before now to an English Pogues). They were never less than totally riveting and engaging from start to finish, with wit, humour and great story telling.
THE COMPLETE & UTTER SINGING LOINS -
Reviewed by Ben Donnelly in US Mag, DUSTED. www.dustedmagazine.com
...The duo formed in the early 90's with the specific intent of messing around with English folk. And mess around they did, 49 times, all of which are collected for this compilation.
The somber, medieval lilt of traditional balladry is tossed against the kitchen sink imagery and anger of post-war Britain. Think of the grimy films of Ken Loach or Phillip Larkin's hostile poetry.
...Their austere rawness exposes a warm heart. The Singing Loins are like a hedgehog - small, smelly and covered with prickles, but very English and charming in spite of it all.
“The Loins are fast
becoming one of my favourite acts... They radiate
originality and attack their instruments like their lives depended on it, and
are absolutely incapable of a lacklustre
performance... Beautifully rough acoustic music has rarely sounded this good...
They produce a sound that is the most intense and superbly vital
Sean McGhee - ROCK ‘N’ REEL
“The excellent Singing Loins provide an exotic mix of the traditional and the ultra modern.”
TIME OUT
“A style and panache so
strong... Startling... Monumentally magnificent. An overtly original sound which draws out a
truly splendid yet gritty taste of
Spike Sommer - SPIRAL SCRATCH
“Sure beats the shit outta the Pogues.”
