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Last year, a full ten years on from their first appearance on the scene, the iconic folk-rock band released an anniversary double-CD that celebrated their longevity in fine style. It also heralded the return to recording of the latest LJE lineup (PJ Wright on guitars, Gareth Turner on melodeon, Guy Fletcher on fiddle and mandolin, with Hugh Bunker on bass and Mark Stevens at the drumkit).
I’ll own up to a certain amount of trepidation, and a distinct feeing of is this going to be as good as it should be? or am I going to be disappointed? Well I needn’t have worried, so there’s the good news out at the start!
The gang are back, with a vengeance, and the utterly unmistakable LJE sound is there in all its glory, but if anything tighter and more together than before and aided by a sensibly balanced production (by Mark himself) that harbours no grudges and bears no favours, everyone getting their fair share of the limelight.
This record is clearly conceived in the spirit of the “dinner table” disc of the anniversary collection, in that it’s a listening album that showcases the songs and songwriting as much as the playing, but that’s an observation rather than a criticism and this is a sound-good set par excellence with a quite easygoing, relaxed feel (ie not too much in-yer-face). PJ’s rocking guitar is perhaps reined back a touch in terms of number of solos (but he still comes into his own when the band plays live), but there’s no complaint because he’s still very much a presence in the mix notwithstanding.
As for the songs themselves, this comeback set opens with a pair of Pete Scrowther compositions (as it should!): the title track, a response to the timeless warmongering, and a quintessential quasi-trad folk-rock ballad Lily Of Barbary (one of the album’s best tracks, albeit already pretty familiar from PJ’s solo record).
Pete’s third offering, Steeltown Saturday Night, is a grittily truthful, if somewhat unflattering portrait of his schoolboy stamping-ground, Consett (though it could be any number of steeltowns I guess), complete with one of those catchily wordy-rhythmic Tanglefoot-style choruses.
Pete’s song-tally is equalled by three Turner/Stevens compositions: Ginger Billy is the mildly embellished true story of a wartime farming man espousing his father’s humanitarian values, whereas the jauntier Welcome To The Sparrow Club takes a slightly tongue-in-cheek fly-on-the-wall view of a bunch of “armchair worriers” down at the local (sort-of Show Of Hands meets Little Johnny), and The Falling Down Man kind-of speaks for himself.
LJE also turn in a rocking cover of Steve Knightley’s venomously relevant diatribe Cutthroats, Crooks And Conmen, a sounds-familiar cover of Penny Sykes’ fable Kenzie, and two reliable trad-arrs, the better of which is a lavishly spooky take on The Plains Of Waterloo. Elsewhere, PJ permits the band to revisit his Random Acts Of Kindness, but the band version doesn’t really add anything.
One final point: in view of the weighted-towards-songs nature of the album, it might sound perverse when I comment that the customary medley of "instrumental malarkey", strategically placed just past midway through the album, turns out to be one of its highlights. No matter - you’ll want to return to virtually every track to hear if it’s as good as first impression gave. So it’s a strong welcome-back for the Johnnies then!
David Kidman
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