GREEN ROCK RIVER BAND - ALBUM REVIEW

Green Rock River Band - Rhinoceros (Hand Clap Records) 
Green Rock River Band - Rhinoceros

Release Date: 26th May 2014

The Green Rock River Band are one of those bands that you might hear performing in the corner of a festival one day on your way to see the  Kaiser Chiefs and their sound would make you stop in your tracks. Then maybe you'd hang around to check out the next track. Before you know it, you've been dancing along for half an hour and you've purchased their CD....and maybe a T-shirt. And it would have been entirely the right decision. The London collective fuse all kinds of 'old' styles of music from Jazz to Bluegrass to Folk to Blues and they appear to be lead by some descendant of Fagin. The album starts with the woozy gypsy lilt of 'Charlie Stork's Blues', full of trombone, banjo and woe, before the marvellously monikered 'Angry Ferret' comes do-se-doing up to you for the best hoe-down of your short life. And then we head to the pub with the whole band to drink a cocktail of depravity and sing along to 'Drink Here Til I Die'. It's a heady start to any album but a beautifully intoxicating one, that's for sure.

The gently soothing fiddle of 'This Old Heart' comes straight from the American Midwest via Nick Cave's vocal chords while 'Seasons' is a surprisingly seductive little number that would suit a burlesque routine as long as the discarded costume had been a wild-west showgirl with a feather in her hair and a perfectly placed vanity spot. 'Rosie Ann' revisits the Grinderman tones and the vocal duet is sublime as Rebecca Freeman's soft tones are a welcome breeze on a song full of broken hearts (check out the free download of this track below, interesting beats featured as well as the band bring the old up to date). The light and countrified air of 'Old Summer Nights' is ripe for a good old barn dance before the brief interlude of 'Leaky Pipe Trio' which is a delightful piece of instrumental fun lead by pots'n'pans percussion. The album finishes up with 'Last Fair Deal' - Fagin banging out a country tune with Chas'n'Dave - and 'Mole In The Ground' which has an Indigo Girls meets Mad Dog MacRae feel to it and for that I am oh so grateful. Here is a band so bursting with ideas from across the musical mists of time that you can't help but suspect they may arrive at gigs in a Delorean. Or maybe that giant time travelling train thing the Doc built. That would be awesome.

More information: www.greenrockriverband.com 


Live Dates:

31st May - Album Launch @ Union Records, Lewes
8th June - Grey Horse Pub, Kingston Upon Thames
28th June - Union Chapel, London
22nd-26th August - Small World Festival, Kent

26th October - Grey Horse Pub, Kingston Upon Thames

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