Review:
'HART, GRANT & THE BURN/ BURNING / SHAKER HYMN, THE'
'Clonakilty, De Barra's Folk Club, 16th June 2013'
- Genre: 'Rock'
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Our Rating:
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Last year, W&H received a surprise festive gift. Seemingly out of nowhere, ex-Hüsker Dü legend Grant Hart announced a string of low-key dates including (hurrah!) one in the heart of West Cork; literally the week before Christmas.
If that wasn’t seismic enough, the fact a young Cork-based band The Shaker Hymn were also present to knock us out with a superb support set put the icing on the cake. Aside from the fact lead guitarist Robbie Barron also played with John Blek & The Rats, we knew nothing of them at the time, but within minutes that had all melted away. The Shaker Hymn played with tension, verve and passion and were clearly working up a formidable set; an impression that was cemented when we saw them again at De Barra’s a month later.
Tonight, then, is a repeat of that dream December date and in terms of quality, it’s up there once again. THE SHAKER HYMN have an all-too-brief 25 minutes, but they make every second count, even when the breaks go against them. Frontman Caoilian Sherlock busts a guitar string during an aggressive version of ‘The Hunter & The Headman’, but he barely misses a beat, concentrating on delivering a fine vocal while the band ebb and swell behind him.
If anything, it only spurs them on to greater things and by the time they’ve treated us to a string of tantalising classics-in-waiting such as the shimmering ‘Caroline’ and the dynamic, set-closing ‘Hang You From Your Heart’, they’ve done more plenty to suggest greatness this way comes. Rumblings of an album prior to Christmas are getting louder and on this form, it’s going to be a belter. Watch this space.
GRANT HART, meanwhile, appeared to have faded into relative obscurity in recent years. Ten years elapsed between his ‘Good News For Modern Man’ and 2009’s ‘Hot Wax’, but a whole lot has suddenly ensued in the past six months. This time round, Hart and his scarily youthful charges THE BURN/ BURNING are hitting West Cork at the end of a 12-date Irish tour and Hart’s European profile is at its highest in years as it’s recently been announced that Domino will be releasing his new double-album opus ‘The Argument.’
Loosely based around John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ and a recently-discovered, previously though lost manuscript of William Burroughs’ unpublished ‘Lost Paradise’ sci-fi novel, ‘The Argument’ sounds like a ambitiously weighty concept, but then Hart’s 1991 quasi-concept LP ‘The Last Days Of Pompeii’ (perhaps previously his most celebrated post-Huskers release) took in everything from Vesuvius’ fatal eruption in AD79 to Nordic Gods and Nazi rocket scientist Werner Von Braun and it still rocked like a bastard.
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The selections previewed from ‘The Argument’ tonight suggest that tunes haven’t been sacrificed on the altar of high art, anyway. The plaintive ‘Morningstar’ is an early highlight, while the emotive ‘Is The Sky The Limit?’ and the catchy, Buddy Holly-ish ‘Letting Me Out’ is already sounding like Hart at his idiosyncratically catchy best. All three suggest ‘The Argument’ could be one of Grant Hart’s best to date.
The Burn/ Burning sound like they’ve grown into the set a little more since last Christmas, while the addition of a keyboard player adds a little more dimension and depth. Bespectacled and clad in plaid shirt and a fantastic pair of blood red shoes, Hart again seems to be energized by De Barra’s informal atmosphere and he attacks both the anthemic ‘Shoot Your Way To Freedom’ and the hard-driving Patti Smith-influenced ‘You’re The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water’ with a tangible relish.
It’s a testament to the confidence Hart displays in his new material that the set only occasionally detours into the distant past. In fact, the only concession to Hüsker Dü’s illustrious past comes via a frenetic thrash through ‘She Floated Away’ during the encore. The evening’s most concerted cheers, however, are surely reserved for a colossal version of ‘2541’: still as celebratory a break-up song as you’ll hear this or any other year.
De Barra's online
Domino Records online
The Shaker Hymn Facebook page
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author: Tim Peacock / Photos: Kate Fox
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Grant Hart & The Burn/Burning
The Shaker Hymn
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