photo by Richard Davis
Every sprawling city, each urban street it holds and the shadows that drape their households and corners provide a kaleidoscope of tales and drama and it is here that the new album from Harry Stafford sets its sights. Gothic Urban Blues is a collage of just some of the stories and secrets you may find within that sprawl, dark gothic tales smoked in equally tenebrific sounds and simply one gorgeous incitement for ears and imagination.
Stafford is no stranger to inspiring a hungry appetite for his sounds as frontman/guitarist founder of post-punk rockers Inca Babies but his solo venture is a whole new adventure drenched in intrigue and intimation. The Manchester hailing artist seeds his personal creativity in a love of blues piano and barroom ballads and as his 2017 debut album, Guitar Shaped Hammers (and the title of the band his has brought together around him), revealed it has quickly shaped its own identity fully proven by the even more irresistible Gothic Urban Blues. The new album feeds the interest we all share on what happens behind closed doors and in the lives of strangers, supping on possibilities within to breed its own suppositions. Every track within the album draws ears and thoughts into a myriad of intimately caliginous worlds whilst carrying a certain contagion, an instinctive swing swiftly proving as addictive as the narratives it harbours.
With the Guitar Shaped Hammers made up of Rob Haynes (The Membranes, Inca Babies), trumpeter Kevin Davy (Lamb, Cymande), guitarist/bassist Nick Brown (The Membranes) and Vincent O’Brien on Weisseborn slide guitar alongside, Stafford immediately uncages that almost primal infectiousness talked of with album opener, She Just Blew Me Away. Its initial caress of guitar is enough to provoke attention, an intrigue quickly escalated by Stafford’s fingers on piano keys and the swarthy shimmer of guitar beside him. In no time his distinctive voice is strolling through the imagination too, his dirt laced tones equipped with the catchiness equally infesting the surrounding sounds and accentuated by the slow but lively crawl of rhythms. As throughout the release, there is a Nick Cave meets Tom Wait meets The Filthy Tongues scent teasing away and inevitably just due to his unique voice a touch of the Inca Babies but in one track alone there is no disguising the individuality of the quickly potent incitement.
Cruel Set of Shades follows and just as eagerly infests ears and the psyche with its slow prowl of a saunter, one instantly wrapped in the inimitably spun strands of Brown’s guitar as the suggestive flames and lure of Davy’s horns, as in its predecessor, just escalates the evolving picture and emotions it bears. Haunting and rousing, the track hungrily wormed under the skin in no time, is rhythmic rove and sonic scintillation heightening the creative manna before the album’s title track delves deeper into the cinematic prowess and troubadour rapport that lines Stafford’s writing. It is another song which instinctively set feet, hips, and vocal chords to work, its jazz cured breath an almost feral protagonist to thoughts alongside Stafford’s ever descriptive and darkly poetic lyrics.
Across the piano driven urban waltz of Painted Ocean and the earnest balladry of Infinite Dust, the album only tightened its grip, the first as much an evocation to thoughts as to an eagerly swaying body whilst the second melancholically wraps its arms around the listener with sorrow and crepuscular beauty. The sonic tempestuousness lining its walls, Brown again creating a rare incitement which almost defies the sure craft behind it, provides a persistent taunting only adding to a compelling presence soon eclipsed slightly by new single Black Rain. It too is a heady seduction of a ballad with Stafford’s keys accentuating the pull of his words amidst another reserved yet illustratively potent tapestry of guitar and melody.
It has proven hard to choose a favourite moment within the album, many contenders but the irresistible stroll of Sideways Shuffle always makes a potent case, the track a jazz and blues nurtured amble lit by gothic shadows around lamplight bearing street corners with a great Bauhaus like hue to its emotive gaslight. The track is quite superb though straightaway matched in temptation by the magnetic and resonating observation of Man In a Bar, another slice of blues bearing suggestion as infectious as it is evocative.
The final pair of Disappearing and Into The Storm bring the release to as striking and enthralling a proposition as it unveiled itself as; the first of the two a fuzz luring, shadows and melody embroiling drift into the darkest corners of life and a despondency of it with its successor a physically swaying, temptation spraying canter which was so easy to get involved and wrapped up in.
In a world now in isolation and hours with little to do on our hands the mind might be wondering what is indeed going on behind those curtains in the streets outside of the glass. Harry Stafford has a host of suggestions within Gothic Urban Blues, one of the best distractions and albums you are likely to come across this year.
Gothic Urban Blues is out now via Black Lagoon Records; available @ https://harrystafford.bandcamp.com/album/gothic-urban-blues
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Pete RingMaster 23/04/2020
Copyright RingMasterReview: MyFreeCopyright
The instinctive catchiness of the surging gothic rock/folk scented encounter even in its slower reflective moments is a potent trait across the whole of the album, the following Louder Than Hell similarly an infectiously stirring incitement this time embroiled in a great electronic rock/industrial bred wind across tenacious heavy rock nurtured textures. Vocally Engler and Mia combine to enthralling effect in a chorus which echoes the contagious dynamism of a song which swiftly had the body bouncing though too there is a siren like enchantment to it.
As mentioned earlier, drama is in full force coating every note and syllable of the outstanding first track, The Exorcism soon following with an equal fertility in all its textures and enterprise. Similarly an inherent catchiness is as bold as the creative theatre shaping the tapestry of light and dark sparking the imagination of band and listener alike. The symphonic lure of keys provides a seductive rapture in the turbulent heart of the song, J’s voice managing to echo both sides in his ever alluring and potent presence.
This is a song which began back in the early nineties and reappeared on a cassette they found when the band was assembling demos for what originally was to be a 4-track EP. Completed last year, Bret adding lyrics and melody to the original demo, Wish No Harm became the lead single for Dear Tired Friends and there could be no finer invitation to the album. The opening bassline was immediate manna to the ears, its lure unapologetic flirtation echoing the core essence of eighties post punk and only enhanced by the swiftly following enticement of vocals and guitar. There is something of Bauhaus meets The Cure to the song with a just as flavoursome tease of bands such as Leitmotiv and Gene Loves Jezebel but nevertheless stands unique to Audra and their dark imagination.
Captive opens up with its title track, a dark mist springing the lumbering gait of the song but a funereal step soon wrapped in romancing melodies as a shadow bred atmosphere descends. Magnetic rhythms are swiftly courted by the ever potent and alluring tones of Chvasta, both in turn hugged by the heavy emotive doom gaze breath of the track. Haunting and mesmeric, the song continues to seduce and impose, drama soaking very brooding note and harmonic utterance trespassing and seducing the senses.
The following Valentine’s Mourning similarly has a raw energy and swing to its attack driven by the senses nagging boisterousness of rhythms with this time harsher punk essences infesting its character. Keys add to the melodic seduction and flames tempting within whilst as with the first track, an organic catchiness brings something akin to bands like Dommin to the imagination.
It is an outstanding start reinforced by the senses transfixing tale of The Ghost of Rab McVie. Strings and their electronic counterparts quickly infest the imagination, the first from the suggestive touch and craft of Susannah Clark. Metcalfe is soon within their descriptive midst, voice similarly nurturing thoughts as the song leads the listener into its melancholic heart. There is a beauty to it though which just seduces ears and imagination but with an earthiness keeping the dark surroundings fully in view before the album’s title track provides the gateway into a nefarious journey. Feeling like being trapped in a Celtic Wickerman driven nightmare, the song simultaneously overwhelms, indeed suffocates, and seduces all with increasing intensity. It is quite superb with the craft of Clark simply irresistible.
The album’s piano nurtured atmospherically chilling Intro sets the tone alongside Sharone’s painting of words; its poetic scene setting the portal into the dark charms and cold breath of the following Graveyard. Once more the piano of Michelle Bailey captures ears and imagination as richly as the powerful and imposingly graceful tones of Sharone, both aligned to the infectious rhythmic manipulation of bassist Zach Barerra and drummer Anthony Hester. With sonic flames from the strings of guitarist Alex Goldsmith adding to the captivation, the outstanding track immerses the listener in dark magnetic theatre where whether calm and seductive or aroused and burning the senses, it engulfs the senses and imagination.
Its Middle Eastern spices are even richer within the following and equally exceptional Echoes In The Night. They emerge from the initial shadows of the song, dark corners and provocative ecclesiastical chants enticing as they are soon in union with the wiry tendrils of guitar. With Blancmange like qualities, those cosmopolitan essences dance seductively on the ear, keys and guitar weaving an entrancing beckon before the grittier tones of Anastasia walk the eager stroll. Her lead guitar prowess teases around and alongside too while rhythms share their excitable shuffle in a proposal which has the body as lustfully involved as the imagination.