Album Review: The Dowling Poole - "Refuse"


Over the last couple of years, Willie Dowling and Jon Poole have certainly been pretty prolific with their Dowling Poole project. Always a varied band with plenty of tricks up their speed and a righteous anger firing their lyrics, Refuse is a collection of some of these tracks which have crept out on the internet prior to the lockdown (a separate collection of the group's lockdown releases is incoming soon apparently).

There's a real fury behind these songs despite the gentle nature of the lyrics - opener The Strawman is an angry diatribe against Johnson and Trump while Fuck You Goodbye is a sheer howl of rage set to gentle countrified backing and is a real highlight here likewise the furious Deep Breath ("The game is done/The wrong side won/There is no change of heart to come"). It's not all political invective though as The Same Mistake Again looks at dysfunctional family relationships while Miles Checks Out is a Falling Down style tale of one man's nervous breakdown set to an impressive multi-part musical backing while Bright Spark is an XTC indebted tale of trying to find your own true identity.

The most impressive thing about Refuse is that it holds together as an album in its own right much better than it really has any right to given that most of these tunes were only put out as standalone releases. Bouncing between genres with scant regard for convention (as, let's be honest, is the Dowling Poole's trademark), this is another timely reminder of what good songwriters these guys are. Definitely well worth your investigation I'd say.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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