We're usually so taken up with extolling the virtues of Liverpool's Viper Label's archival releases at W&H that we sometimes forget they are also instrumental in nurturing the most individualistic new talent cropping up on Merseyside these days.
Indeed, in recent years, Paul Hemmings and Mike Badger have played a vital role in bringing the hugely gifted likes of irrepressible roots-popsters THE GREAT NORTH-WESTERN HOBOES through to enigmatic electronica wizards OTAKU NA DENKI and the under-rated TRAMP ATTACK to our attention, not to mention receiving a surprise (but wholly warrented) Mercury Music Prize nomination courtesy of the still-amazing EDGAR 'JONES' JONES album 'Soothing Music For Stray Cats'.
So by rights we should really have ceased being amazed by now, but it's hard when they keep upping the ante and quietly flooring us with albums of the quality of their latest release, 'Fierce Truth & Fortune' by one CHRIS ELLIOT: a young, Liverpudlian singer/ songwriter with a big'n'tremulous voice, a nice line in passionate, redemptive songs about love, loss and longing and a staggeringly nonchalent ability to juggle blues, folk, country and rockabilly and re-invent them all in his own, soul-bearing image.
The setting is predominantly acoustic throughout, with the framework generally provided by Elliot's potently-struck guitar and emotive vocals. Paul Hemmings and Mike Badger (and the occasional special guest) add further colour to the palette via additional tasteful guitars, bass, dobro and basic percussion, but too much sonic enhancement is sensibly resisted, ensuring that the intelligence and naked honesty at the core of Elliot's work is never obscured.
It proves to be exactly the right approach, too, for there's a directness and durability in Elliot's songs that immediately marks him out from the run of the mill 'acoustic singer/ songwriter' pack. He's a young man with an impressively old'n'exeprienced head on his shoulders and a direct connection with the blues that ensures impressive, stoked and charismatic songs like the potent opener 'A Million Reasons' and the jaywalking basslines and joyful, Dylan-ish tinges of 'Nailed To The Floor' sup from the muddy waters of the Mississippi delta as well as the murky Mersey.
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Perhaps inevitably, Elliot's gritty approach also sometimes references Mersey mentors of yore. The cheeky'n'skiffly 'Love Don't Mean A Thing' is infectious as hell and recalls both Mavers and Costello while sometimes Elliot literally plugs in with an under-rated Liverpudlian hero when he shares vocals with Mike Badger on tunes likes the spiritual and uplifting likes of 'Can't See The Light' and 'Let It Roll.' The earthiness is nicely balanced by occasional flights into winsome English pastorality with songs such as the rippling, low-key closer 'All I See' and the deliciously gentle 'Butterfly' which can't help but remind you of Nick Drake's 'Five Leaves Left' thanks to its' vulnerable romanticism.
Crucially, though, the shadows of comparison never lengthen enough to dwarf this highly promising young performer and even when Elliot's songs are written from the time-honoured ramblin', gamblin', my-girl-done-me-wrong perspective (as on the exquisite 'Hurt, Cheat & Lie' when he's duetting with Kate Crozier) he can go from forceful and passionate to delicate and broken in the space of a finely-spun chord change and during the course of these 16 wonderfully consistent and potent tunes he's rarely found wanting in any department.
Singer/ songwriters may be dismissed as ten-a-penny, especially in these Myspace-addled, market-flooding times, but there's always room for one with compassion, intelligence, fire and skill. Chris Elliot has all in spades and 'Fierce Truth & Fortune' earmarks the start of what - by rights - ought to be a very distinguished career. Let's hope he gets the breaks.
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