Dai Jeffries reviews Broadside by Bellowhead

Bellowhead’s fourth album comes so loaded with expectations it’s a wonder that it can stand up unaided. Hedonism has been so successful and the band’s profile never higher so can they keep the momentum going?

Emphatically, yes! Their working relationship with producer John Leckie seems to have imbued them with even more confidence; they trust him and he has brought out the best in them. The album opens with ‘Byker Hill’, relatively straight with lots of strings but then comes the first surprise. ‘The Old Dun Cow’ is a comic song beloved of folk club audiences forty years ago. Bellowhead treat the story of the burning down of a pub as the real tragedy that it undoubtedly is and fill it with drama and noise.

The pace doesn’t let up until the fifth track, ‘Betsy Baker’, but even this initially quiet tale of unrequited love heads for a big finish with Jon Boden’s voice taking on the cracked quality that is perfect for ‘Black Beetle Pies’ – a true story, according to Pete Flood, who arranged it and four other songs in the middle of the record. Flood’s contributions form the mildly unhinged meat in a sandwich held together by Boden’s vigorous but more conventional treatments. He’s responsible for including my least favourite traditional song of all time, ‘What’s The Life Of A Man’, an appalling piece of mawkishness that singarounds find deeply moving when sufficient ale has flowed. Flood’s take is a cross between Brass Monkey and Tom Waits! It doesn’t improve the words but it is short.

There is just one instrumental, ‘Dockside Rant’, among the twelve tracks and it’s perhaps significant that nothing outstays its welcome. You can imagine that Bellowhead could jam for an hour without repeating themselves but everything is carefully arranged and tight without losing the band’s natural exuberance even when throwing everything they’ve got at a song like ‘Lillibulero’, here telling the story of the devil and the farmer’s wife.

So, Bellowhead have done it again. There will be no stopping them now.

Dai Jeffries


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