LOBSTER QUADRILLE MAGAZINE REVIEW
Punctuated by references to London's landmarks, watering holes and drunken, drugged underbelly Conil's Strange Part of the Country is like a dark and dirty back street tour of the metropolis itself. "It's a strange part of the country, we are not welcome," he sings on the title track as if forewarning us.
Yet for all the dirty blues riffs, and seedy morning after ballads this is an incredibly beautiful record.
All the songs are lovingly produced with deep, organic double bass and fine musicianship from the backing band. After The Hole, though one of the lesser tunes on the album, is full of interesting layers of sound including harp and strings. A sort of smoker's paradise.
No wonder Tchad Blake (of Tom Waits fame) agreed to mix the album.
Round Midnight is a great drunken, howl-at-the-moon, bluesy thing that demands to be played in some low-down jazz club (The Crypt in Camberwell maybe?)
Even though this record is in no way avant garde, and indeed maybe too straight down the line for some, it's safe to say that on every track there's something that catches your attention, and at its best the music simply mesmerises.
Still the best thing about this album is the voice and the songwriting of Conil himself. Old Irish Drunks, a simple guitar and vocal that builds into a fully flourished lament, is beautiful in both structure and execution.
His voice is absolutely perfect for the remorseful subject matter. And Kitty's Wake is the sound of a man completely in control of both his sound and his sad, though ultimately uplifting, message: "everyone dies, everyone is born with life, everyone might find someone they want to spend their lives with."
A song title like A Waterfall is A Poem Pouring Through A Rock might set alarm bells ringing, but this a kind of Bukowskian, drunken poetry and in the context of the song (a ramshackle Shane McGowan-esque rock-out) it's absolutely fitting.
The album ends with the plaintive Camden Town And I Should Be Happy at which point you can almost smell the stale stout and cigarettes.
Conil deserves to be massive.
