It's been many years since I last sat down to write an album review back in the pre-Myspace and Facebook era on a very old school website where a collective decision was taken to focus on Live reviews rather than record reviews. Well now I regularly write for Whisperin' & Hollerin' and having been sent to review Trent Miller at the Betsey Trotwood, I got talking to old friend and Trent's Label boss Nick West who gave me a copies of both of Trent's albums to review. How could I say no?
This album will probably work best with a bottle of red wine a dark candlelit room wraithed in incense and other pungeant aromas so you can wallow in the dark, mellow majesty of these songs of the darker side of our streets. From the opening title track, the album conjures up vignette after vignette that could be the soundtrack for good, atmospheric films.
An expressive country folk band bring out the heartbreak of Nowhere Road and I have fallen in love with the Ballad Of Gospel Oak: a song that will join the pantheon of songs about unlikely parts of London that already includes New Malden by the Metal Boys and Tooting Bec Wreck by Hanoi Rocks among many others. Of course it sounds nothing like either of those and is thankfully not as disturbing as New Malden lyrically.
I have a feeling that both Come Down to Murder Love and Down In The Lonesome valley will become firm favourites on my I-pod at work with Trent's deep voice the perfect timbre to soundtrack an unlikely journey through the streets while worrying whether anyone else is listening. He also has the ability to sound like a slightly more morose Stuart Staples without the mumbling so you're left in no doubt what he is singing about. I've been trying to figure out who originally did Down in Lonesome Valley or where he stole it, but either way it is slower and more mournful than it is live. No bad thing as the Violins sound magnificent.
|
This album is well worth searching out if you're in the mood for some dark, almost gothic folk music. the album closes with Hunters in the Twilight and it has to be one of the more comtemplative songs I've heard about going out to find some companionship late at night. You also that you know whoever he meets it won't turn out right. Welcome to Inferno Valley', however has certainly turned out right and is growing on me with each and every listen.
Trent Miller online
Bucketfull of Brains website
|
