9/10
This is a man with tears running down his face and trickling in to his whiskey, gruff, croaky, yet sensual, warm tones are the wonderful welcome to this truly excellent album. Full of the standard themes of art, love, loss, drinking, the tough love of the road and the difficulty in being heard, let alone listened to, Webster does and it would appear to have (should that be suffered) it all. Throughout there is a recurring cello, Rachel Brown, which throbs, welling up, like pressing on a bruise, it is exquisite and shows, if proof was needed that Webster doesn’t just have an ear for a tune, a turn of phrase but an ear for how to build a great tune. ‘Elvis’, a tale of the jobbing musician, has a barn stormer of a guitar lick and its terrific country shuffle is as good as you’ll hear on any record out of Austin or Nashville.
It seems, or the illusion is at least that with album number 3 that Webster has stuck to writing what he knows, and after number two Radio 2 success he’s stepped on, and up. This is a home recording, a converted garage at his and Brown’s home, surrounded by the best that medieval York has to offer it is truly remarkable. Consider this Webster is UK Americana’s Graham Le Saux, reliable, top of his game, peerless, number 3 or 4 on the team sheet for every international, but yet not truly valued. Only when he’s not there do you realise that we need him badly. Leaving us exposed to that tricky left hand side problem. He is the missing link, the joining point, where folk fuses with country – he is Anglicana.
OK I get that Webster might not be the first name on your team sheet (or shopping list), he’s not your 25+ goals striker (Dan Champs?) or your long term Mr Dependable between the sticks (Bragg?) but he does the dirty work, 8/10 week in week out. Webster is Le Saux or Pearce, ever present, quietly doing his work, making little to no mistakes, performing at international standard effortlessly. This is that record, beautiful, a malleable mash of folk, country and Alt rock. It’s a record for all not just affecionars. You want to hear what UK Americana is, ‘The Tin Man’ is it, rooted in English folk, influenced by Cash/Young/Springsteen. He is this generation’s Thompson, a generation that grew up listening to their parents Steeleye Span and Lindesfarn, and bought The Cure and Mellencamp when he was still a Cougar. He makes them all, and this is the place to find them, heartbreakers – ‘One to Remember’, drunken Quo’esq stompers – ‘Gin’ and wispy ethereal other worldy folk roots from the backwoods – ‘Gold and Tin’. This is a record that all should own, and is the campaign rallying cry for a genre trying to make its voice heard in a crap filled cluttered world called the music business. The standard is set, now pick up that banjo, guitar or fiddle and beat it.
http://www.americana-uk.com/cd-reviews/item/dan-webster
This is a man with tears running down his face and trickling in to his whiskey, gruff, croaky, yet sensual, warm tones are the wonderful welcome to this truly excellent album. Full of the standard themes of art, love, loss, drinking, the tough love of the road and the difficulty in being heard, let alone listened to, Webster does and it would appear to have (should that be suffered) it all. Throughout there is a recurring cello, Rachel Brown, which throbs, welling up, like pressing on a bruise, it is exquisite and shows, if proof was needed that Webster doesn’t just have an ear for a tune, a turn of phrase but an ear for how to build a great tune. ‘Elvis’, a tale of the jobbing musician, has a barn stormer of a guitar lick and its terrific country shuffle is as good as you’ll hear on any record out of Austin or Nashville.
It seems, or the illusion is at least that with album number 3 that Webster has stuck to writing what he knows, and after number two Radio 2 success he’s stepped on, and up. This is a home recording, a converted garage at his and Brown’s home, surrounded by the best that medieval York has to offer it is truly remarkable. Consider this Webster is UK Americana’s Graham Le Saux, reliable, top of his game, peerless, number 3 or 4 on the team sheet for every international, but yet not truly valued. Only when he’s not there do you realise that we need him badly. Leaving us exposed to that tricky left hand side problem. He is the missing link, the joining point, where folk fuses with country – he is Anglicana.
OK I get that Webster might not be the first name on your team sheet (or shopping list), he’s not your 25+ goals striker (Dan Champs?) or your long term Mr Dependable between the sticks (Bragg?) but he does the dirty work, 8/10 week in week out. Webster is Le Saux or Pearce, ever present, quietly doing his work, making little to no mistakes, performing at international standard effortlessly. This is that record, beautiful, a malleable mash of folk, country and Alt rock. It’s a record for all not just affecionars. You want to hear what UK Americana is, ‘The Tin Man’ is it, rooted in English folk, influenced by Cash/Young/Springsteen. He is this generation’s Thompson, a generation that grew up listening to their parents Steeleye Span and Lindesfarn, and bought The Cure and Mellencamp when he was still a Cougar. He makes them all, and this is the place to find them, heartbreakers – ‘One to Remember’, drunken Quo’esq stompers – ‘Gin’ and wispy ethereal other worldy folk roots from the backwoods – ‘Gold and Tin’. This is a record that all should own, and is the campaign rallying cry for a genre trying to make its voice heard in a crap filled cluttered world called the music business. The standard is set, now pick up that banjo, guitar or fiddle and beat it.
http://www.americana-uk.com/cd-reviews/item/dan-webster