Album Review: Star Botherers - "Tales Of Layton Rakes"

 

Hailing from Nottinghamshire, the Star Botherers are another folk-punk to go along with the likes of Ferocious Dog and Skinny Lister in the field with Tales Of Layton Rakes being their second album. They're certainly closer soundwise to Ferocious Dog with a down to earth working class take on the genre which provides a nice contrast to some of the more posh-boy bands who've muddied these waters in the last decade or so.

There's a very angry political invective buried in these songs under a seemingly innocuous gentle folk-punk backing with the self-explanatory Spoons and Blackpool taking potshots at pub violence, Let It Stand being a righteous polemic against Thatcherism and its legacy and Just Around The Corner and Another Lidl Song being laments about how easy it is to get caught in the poverty cycle when you least expect it. Elsewhere, 13 Years In Oregon and A Sailor's Grave are Ferocious Dog style tales of historical injustice.

No Scarlet Rebels style fudging of things here then - this is more akin to a poppier Levellers with the likes of Silence Is Acceptance and Kyle & Norton (a look at how different standards apply to celebrities and working class people on the telly). Although they do find time to slip in the odd bit of humour in the likes of Oddly Excluded, He's Got Dreads and Swearing In Songs.

Overall, Tales Of Layton Rakes can be safely filed next to Ferocious Dog's The Hope and the Levellers' Peace as a good example of fiery heart-on-sleeve folk punk that shows that this genre still has plenty of fuel left in it when it's done right. Good stuff.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Album Review: Diablofurs - "Neon Satellites"

Image
  Diablofurs have previously shared a split release with the very under-rated Deadcuts (RIP) and feature at least one ex-member of semi-legendary "we were the Manics before the Manics" Coventry indie-punks Birdland so the initial omens for this release were pretty promising. Put any thoughts of the scuzzier end of early '90s alternative music out of your mind though because on this evidence, Diablofurs appear to have set their controls for a good decade earlier with a full on power-pop/new wave sound. The opening duo of Chase The Beat  and Everybody's Dreamin'  come on like Parallel Lines  era Blondie being fronted by Gary Numan and it's not an unpleasant sound at all. The album continues on the early '80s vein throughout with the title track coming on like Tubeway Army going pop while the epic Obsession/Meteors  is probably the closest thing stylistically to Birdland on here but the bubbling synths certainly mark it as being a new evolved version of the s
Read more

Sounds From The Junkshop #43 - The Yo-Yo's

Image
  "Too much too soon is not enough..."  - The Yo-Yo's  - Keep On Keepin' On So welcome to what can best be described as Wildhearts Weekend here at Nite Songs. Tomorrow and Sunday we'll finally be carrying on with the band story wot we started way back last August by looking at the various projects the group members got up to after their messy split in 1997 as well as a little bit on their initial reunion in the early years of the millennium. This bit on the Yo-Yo's was originally meant to form part of that side projects column but after reading it through and realising that it actually expands quite a bit outside the Wildhearts story frame, I thought it was deserving of its own SFTJ entry. Plus, they were an awesome band who I used to follow quite avidly back around the turn of the millennium so they definitely deserve a full column to themselves. There Yo-Yo's were formed by Danny McCormack after the Wildhearts went on hiatus, and I remember a great quot
Read more

Album Review: Silver Sun - "Switzerland"

Image
  Ah the memories. Silver Sun were the great should've-been band of the mid-'90s. Taking the '70s Cheap Trick style power-pop formula and giving it a liberal dose of Britrock meatiness, they should have in an ideal world coasted to Top 20 stardom in the wake of the Wildhearts and Terrorvision, both of whom they definitely owed a sly debt in their sound to (although with their own spin on the formula obviously). Instead, they were lumped in with Britpop whose retro footy shirt clad laddishness never really suited them, and when that ship went down in 1998 or so they quickly found themselves sunk. They never officially split up though and frontman James Broad has continued to put releases out under the Silver Sun name with various collaborators old and new in the 20 years since with Switzerland  being their sixth album no less. It kicks off in fine style too with Earth Girls Are Easy  (a tribute to the cornball '80s musical film of the same name) sounding like some great
Read more