An excellent album from one of the most below the radar great folk bands on the planet. Out March the 6th.
Sons of Town Hall are an absolute joyous oddity in the music scene. Two blokes who pretend to be Victorian era musicians, travelling around on a raft and engaging in a series of adventures and comic mishaps. There is a podcast featuring the adventures, Madmen Cross The Water. There are now two albums. There are live shows in unusual venues. By all rights it ought to be crap, it ought to not work. Except… except the two songwriters are absolutely incredible. George is played by British songwriter/producer Ben Parker and Josiah by American songwriter/author David Berkeley. They are a modern day Simon and Garfunkel, spinning worlds with ease and they create some of the most incredible paired harmonies you will ever hear committed to a record. There are tracks on this album that will absolutely move you emotionally. That will make you wonder why they aren’t selling out the Royal Albert Hall. They deserve to. Sadly, we live in an age of disappointment, so Sons of Town Hall find themselves playing to small audiences with barely a ripple created on streaming services. The venue size does not matter though, they utterly commit to each show, to the performance and to the music. Converting the unbelievers one person at a time to their cause.
If you are a Sons of Town Hall fan already, you don’t really need a review of Ghosts and Gods. They have been selling the vinyl at their live shows for months. By the time it comes out only one track, an instrumental, will not have been put out on a regular drip feed release of singles. So instead of talking about what hasn’t been heard we can instead focus on just celebrating what a remarkable collection this is.
It starts with ‘Gods,’ riffing on the music that introduces their podcast each episode. Like much of the record it leans into folk music and old Western style guitar. It is beautiful, the backing harmonies do not move into the foreground, a scene-setter, something to suck you back into the world of Sons Of Town Hall (the name of their fictional raft). ‘How To Build A Boat’ shows their utter commitment to the world building and the quality of the music. It is integral to the Sons of Town Hall story but musically it swirls and soars, building and building across the four and a half minutes. It takes you with it, you want to build that boat, you want them to succeed. You would go into battle with them if they needed you. ‘Wild Winds’ has simple acoustic guitar with a mournful hint of brass before a full band kicks into life.
There are multiple tracks which build with swirling emotion and sound glorious in their last minute. ‘Wild Winds’ sets the tone. ‘Whalebone’ is possibly the best track on the album. It starts with fragile finger plucking, classic Beatles-like strings eventually join in. The intensity then builds and builds to a satisfying crescendo. ‘Antarctica’ pulls off a similar trick just as effectively. ‘Sirens’ sounds like a song that should have been on the soundtrack of that legendary Coen Brother’s film, ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’
If you are willing to give this album a try, there is some utter magic captured within it. Moments of fragile beauty exist alongside more humorous moments and descriptions. It is all played slightly more straight and deadpan than their original album from 2019, ‘The Adventures Of The Sons Of Town Hall.’ That is no bad thing, on stage they do most of the comedy in the banter between the tracks. Seek them out for a unique live experience and love this album whilst you wait for that opportunity.
Essential Tracks: ‘Gods,’ ‘Wild Winds,’ Whalebone,’ ‘Antarctica’ and ‘In My Arms Once More.’
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