Artist: The Rockingbirds
Album: The Return Of The Rockingbirds
Bitrate: 245kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Loose Music
Genre: Rock
Size: 72.99 megs
PlayTime: 0h 39min 41sec total
Rip Date: 2013-02-21
Store Date: 2013-02-25
Track List:
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01. Till Something Better Comes 5:14
Along
02. Fanny 3:18
03. Now I Do 3:13
04. Brand New Plan 2:59
05. Stop The War 2:46
06. You Can't Win The Heart The You 3:38
Broke
07. The Lady Of The Llamas 4:21
08. Fixing The Roof In Your Dream 3:17
09. Juliet 4:54
10. Country Humming 3:29
11. The Lonely & The Drunk 2:32
Release Notes:
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It's more than 20 years since I saw The Rockingbirds tear it up in front of a
crowd of as-yet-unchristened proto-Britpoppers who would soon be more used to
the snot and snort of Oasis and The Verve than the rich textures of the Fabulous
Burrito Brothers' acid country shots. But those 'birds were razor sharp that
night and impressively set about demolishing a stack of Red Stripe as tall as a
man afterwards.
Ah, heady days. It was 1992 and The Rockingbirds snaffled an unlikely slot on
the little cred roster (Manic Street Preachers, St Etienne, Flowered Up) at
Heavenly Records as they were briefly lauded as darlings of the music press
around the time of their self-titled debut, archly produced by the Langer and
Winstanley hit factory. A follow up, the aptly titled Whatever Happened to the
Rockingbirds (with the godlike Edwyn Collins at the controls) emerged on Cooking
Vinyl in 1995 shortly before the band split and that was the last we heard of
themà until now!
Alan Tyler's voice has seasoned with age, its bottom end warmly inhabiting the
slice of life lyricism of songs like The Lonely and the Drunk, You Can't Win the
Heart That You Broke, Now I Do and the stirring Til Something Better Comes
Along, which Gideon Coe has lately been sharing with us on 6Music. The band's
roots lay in C86 indie hangovers like the Weather Prophets and Milk, but their
passionate embrace of country rock was highly infectious and, just as Little
Feat et al had done 20+ years earlier, opened English ears to the beautiful grit
of what has become known as Americana.
Patrick Arbuthnot still plucks a mean pedal steel, Country Humming is a real
beauty, as does Andy Hackett on the mandolin and Sean Read's organ is more to
the fore than I remember. This remains a drop of the very finest good stuff;
well worth the wait.