It's always the guy with the most unlikely profession who create the best rock'n'roll sounds out there, isn't it? After all, if it wasn't for noble professions like grave digging, we'd never have heard the likes of Joe Strummer and Pete Doherty, while care workers have given us everyone from Thom Yorke to Kevin Coyne and the still stupidly-obscure Vinny Peculiar.
So it's re-assuring to discover that maverick, Lancashire-based singer/ songwriter GLYN BAILEY's CV features jobs such as being an egg man to a bed salesman to (intriguingly) an MP's assistant before he entered the musical fray with his debut solo album, 2005's 'Toys From Balsa.'
This writer heard plenty to celebrate during the course of that under-rated and likeably quirky first record, but the encouraging news is that Bailey's erstwhile follow-up, the enigmatically-titled 'Songs From The Old Illawalla', is every bit its' equal and proves that he's earned the right to be bracketed with rulebook-tearing English talents old (Peter Hammill, Luke Haines) and new-ish (Johnny Bramwell and the terminally unsung Vinny Peculiar).
Created primarily by Bailey himself, though with considerable bass and guitar input from cohort Phil Senior, '...Illawalla' sounds superior sonically, but continues determinedly down Glyn's diverse, pop-addled path with scant regard for anything other than what instinctively sounds good to the ear of the author. It remains the best approach, too, as these unlikely, but wonderful songs about everything from the 2006 World Cup Final through to paedophile clowns (!) and the fates of the the 12 men who walked on the moon between 1969-1972 get better and better the more you expose yourself to their idiosyncratic charms.
One theme that recurs several times is ecology and the threat to the planet. It informs both the great, anti-Tone'n'Dubya opener 'Yahoo!' - with its' great Ennio Morricone/ Spaghetti Western twists, anthemic chorus and fine, Bowie-style crooning from Bailey - and the ambitious 'The Doomed Ship Allegory' where space is again the place and the frightening future is addressed head-on with lines like "it was hot, it was cruel/ soon the lifeforms along for the ride lost life support & they died." Sobering, and then some.
Elswhere, songs like 'Groomed', 'Kafkaesque World' and 'Glory' wade into uncomfortably dark lyrical waters. Violence is barely suppressed in the first when Bailey lays into coercion, abuse and prostitution in no uncertain terms ("you're always happy to sepnd my money/ now get in there and be a little honey for some good friends of mine") but ensures to sweeten the pill with the tune's catchy backbeat. The magnificently-titled 'Kafkaesque World, meanwhile, is a sumptuous, would-be Divine Comedy piano ballad written from the unlikely point of view of a torturer ("yes, you must confess, before the end of your stay...time to get you undressed") which makes far more sense when you hear it. The excellent 'Glory' meanwhile, is almost Americana-influenced in its' execution with its' Calexico-style guitars, but pulls no punches whatsover in its' portrayal of death.
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Murder most foul also stalks through 'The Crow', a curious, but totally fascinating Biblical/ fairytale epic built around a Mittle-European rockabilly bustle akin to the Bad Seeds, although here - and on 'Zizou's Big Day' where Zidane's infamous World Cup incident is recalled - Bailey's tongue sounds firmly planted in his cheek. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but neither of these quite hit home like 'Glory, 'Groomed' and the beautifully-observed 'School Reunion': a stomping, dissonant rocker about the dangers of attending such functions. Indeed, when Bailey laments "My excuses are made, this was never right for me/ I will wait for the reunion, class of eternity", this writer can't help but nod in vigourous assent.
With hindsight, the one small failing your reviewer felt 'Toys From Balsa' had was Bailey's occasional foray into lyrical over-verbosity and '...Illawalla' again falls into this trap on the rather overblown final track, 'The Ballad Of Deano': a complex nine-minute tale of a disgraced all-American crooner who would find (in)famy by defecting to the East, Kim Philby-style, during the Cold War. It's OK, and the subject matter is hardly liable NOT to grab this Cold War obsessive, but despite this, a little pruning would have come in handy, especially when Bailey reins things in so well on equally dramatic tunes like 'Down Amongst The Living' and the eerie 'Ghost'.
Nonetheless, this is a minor quibble and when confronted by the abounding excellence of '...Illawalla', such concerns are relatively trifling. What's of paramount importance is that with his sophomore effort Glyn Bailey has again proved himself to be an artist of substance. Long may the eccentric professions continue to be the breeding ground for the most vital talent, eh?
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