Here’s my twopenneth, for what its worth….
While all the musicians in Bellowhead are undoubtably good in their own right, and in their own bands, I find the sum less than the parts. For me, it sounds like a session, maybe the Goose and Firkin, in the Borough, twenty years ago. Good, but twenty years old!
Nick makes some points worth reviewing here..
The difference is that Brass Monkey's concept stopped there - folk music played with brass instruments. Bellowhead went on to add percussion, bagpipes, woodwind and a string section that is even bigger than the brass section. Then they took their sound off in a jazz/world/music hall direction which currently sits many miles away from their folk-based inception. I doubt you could ever confuse the sound made by Bellowhead with the sound made by Brass Monkey...
Percussion.. I remember Martin Brinsford playing frame drum and tambourine
Bagpipes… Giles playing on the CD Burlesque adds nothing groundbreaking to the CD. Only opening two numbers, it is lost (intentionally?) in the mix thereafter. It sounds like an instrument he plays, rather than one he can play. They make no use of the bagpipes modal qualities, or its unique playing and gracing style.
Brass Monkey’s music seems to have been as much about what was not there, spaces, as what was. Isn’t JK’s playing Jazzy? Doesn’t MC’s vocal style pull you, stretch you, goad you, lift you up, and throw you down? Isn’t “Fable of Wings” still modern, and haunting? Isn’t “Watermans Dance” still electrifying?
Bellowhead’s music seems very full on, using all their toys at once. I feel this has been done better before, by the Committee Band, Albion band, Moving Hearts, and others. Everybody ends up playing on every track/ dance. No dynamic, just volume, sorry.
The use of novelty percussion would be OK every now and then, but I feel that there is just too much of it. This, added to over complex arrangements, hides the quality that must be in the band.
I don’t like dissembling bands. I do try to find good in all music, but this, for me, is just "folk" music with knobs on. Where are the haunting spaces, the sense of the lost, or joy of the found?
Are they the new FC? No.
The new Steeleye Span? No.
The Emperors new clothes……?
Dave
