Bluehorses – Dragons Milk and Coal

This album bays loudly and stampedes the listener with a sound that has been created by the fusion of a classic Rock technique thrust into a delicate layer of traditional folk. Liz Prendergast’s vibrant electric fiddle and gritty vocal control works beautifully on tracks like “Rabbit in the Headlights” and “Dragons, Milk and Coal”. Nic Waulker hammers out the funky drum parts, Rob Khoo keeps it all pinned together with his thumping bass line, while Martyn Standing’s provides trail blazing guitar antics in “Liberty”. Another gem from the album is “Barbara Allen” a high-energy tale of treachery and love with foot stomping fiddle and guitar parts.

The “Mining song”, written straight from the heart is about the 1913 explosion which rocked the tiny town of Senghenydd, to the north of Caerphilly in Wales. The tragedy became know as the Aber Valley/ Senghenydd pit disaster and the explosion, and subsequent release of poisonous gas, killed 439 miners, making it the most lethal and tragic mining disaster in British history. On the morning of Tuesday 14 October 1913, nearly 950 men had been working below ground, one of those men being Lizzie’s Granddad on his last shift.  The chorus of the song, resonates the spirit of the miners echoing voices, calling out, down the tunnels of time.

Every track on the album is a winner and the CD also contains live versions of “Witch in Wedlock” and “Old Haslams Bits” as a bonus.

Darren Beech