Singer-songwriter booms come and go. As the fifties turned into the swinging sixties, folkies used their medium as a form of left-leaning, mass broadcast social commentary. At the end of that decade, lush and introspective weaves of rock and folk, country, and psychedelia emanated from Laurel Canyon. In the 21st century, a movement has emerged, people making acoustic music driven by punk energies and darker themes—a perfect blend of the former’s more direct musicality and the latter’s soul searching. Saint Nick the Lesser sits at the heart of this movement.
Take opener, “21 Minutes,” a stark song that reflects on the author’s own suicide attempt and muses on the idea that no one knows what’s going on in the heads of others, even their closest friends.
Musically speaking, “Catfish Bones” is a big, brash, bluesy, broadside one that feels like a cross between a Southern spiritual and a Kurt Weill composition for a Brecht musical. Dark and ornate, cinematic and sensational, it is undoubtedly a standout moment. By contrast, “Cassandra” is a gorgeous, sad and reflective ballad that ebbs and flows between stark singer-songwriter territory and orchestral grandeur.
“God Bless” is a punky hoe-down satirising America’s gun ownership advocates, “Train Tracks” sounds like a country Frank Turner which is something the world needs more of and “The Tunnel” ends the album in an optimistic, upbeat, up-and-at-‘em number, one that reminds us of the fabulous quote, Churchill, I think, “If you are walking through hell, keep going.”
The current music scene is full of earnest troubadours with designer jeans and wide-brimmed hats, but if you want the real deal, the lived-in, genuine article, then Nick is your man! Another wise man once said, “Every saint has a past, every sinner a future,” which is essentially the album’s strapline.
On an interesting footnote, when this album finished playing on a specific unnamed music platform, the next song it cued up was by Beans on Toast, Frank Turner’s long-time friend and touring buddy. I thought it was serendipitous, or perhaps just proof that, at least sometimes, the algorithms do work.
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