For anyone who still loves the 12" singles and album The Bolshoi put out in the 80's, the news that Trevor Tanner and Paul Clark are back as The Bolshoi Brothers is great news, this is the pairs comeback album, recorded during the Covid Pandemic separately at the home studios of the pair in Seattle and Jacksonville Beach. The album was mastered by Steve Turnidge.
The album opens with Just A Girl that has some of The Bolshoi's signature brooding strings on the opening, before the lyrics seem almost a bit rappy in places, they explain how everything has gone wrong for Just a Girl in the world, who would rather be a lover than a fighter.
Suburbs asks all sorts of questions of someone stuck out in the Burbs, wondering if they can find any real knowledge from those around him in the burbs, with a sound somewhere between Chamber Pop and the Dance rap of bands like Wilson make this rather compelling as a single.
Ghosts Of The Past those things that keep coming back to haunt you, both from your own past life and the lives of those who came before, this is gentle electronica, with poetic lyrics, filling in details of how haunted you really are.
Steam Funk is an obvious offshoot of the Steam Punk scene, this time with brightly coloured outfits and a need to dance into the new dawn, the backing is somewhat elegiac, working around carefully played guitar figures.
Cowboy Chords takes some elemental country twanging guitar with a few more modern twists musically for this tale of love, lust and the hopes for a brighter future, where they can play Sob Story cowboy style.
Cauldron Of Despair is a perfect song title for 2025 even if lyrically it isn't about our current miasma, it is full of sadness and regret for the poverty they see around them. The guitar rises out of the ashes of despair the main signal of the last vestiges of hope.
Beautiful Creature is thankfully not about the dreadful band of the same name, but about a beautiful creature they keep in the basement, an alien baby that allows out of space sounds to adorn this tale of out of space love and desire.
Mr Ridiculous is somewhere between Jacques Brel and Kevin Ayers for this tale of someone who sits drinking out of a bag in the park, long after he should have, is he a genius or just a drunken waste of space.
Platitudes Of Scorn for everything that has happened, over a slow acoustic guitar backing, with some delightful keyboards, while they world teeters on the edge of an abyss, that your Platitudes Of Scorn only make more likely.
Built In Obsolescence a subject matter that seems far more pertinent today, than it did when this was recorded, not that long ago, are they in favour of more permanence, a way to keep things going, making repairs as you go, finding new ways to do things.
The album closes with the quiet beauty of This Town that feels like a string led farewell to a previous lifestyle, they complain about how much they have to go to work, for so little reward, with memories of earlier times.
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