The Penny Black Remedy's new album is out in time for the band's summer festival appearances including a trip to the Sea Rock Festival in Montenegro at the end of July where they appear alongside Steve Wynn and Chris Cacavas among others.
The opening song Some People Just Don't Know When To Quit which is also the lead single off of the album bursts out like a Rembetika hoe down with a big band sound filling the dance floor as they as they repeatedly chant the song's title. It's effective and draws me into an album that is sort of a lighter sounding Urban Voodoo Machine crossed with elements of The Trans-Siberian Marching band. They sound like they would be perfect on a bill at the Gypsy Hotel.
That doesn't change on the wonderfully titled Putting The Mental Into Sentimentality which is a sort of fast and frantic western cowboy oompah tune with pretty damn cool lyrics before they come over all Fugs meets Bertold Brecht on Nice Things Happen When You Stop Complaining: a song whose lyrics sound like they could be a recording of someone's therapy session.
You'll Thank Me In The Morning features very sultry vocals from Marijana Hajdarhodzic as she repeats the title and then a very cool almost Chet Baker-style trumpet solo comes in to make it a perfect morning after the night before song as you figure out if you really want a second date or not as you stagger home from wherever it was you woke up.
I've Got A Friend is almost like listening to Madness playing on a soundtrack for a Emir Kusturica film. As the tale of just what this friend has done unfolds you're not quite sure if you want a friend like this but well we all have a friend or two who fits the bill. Half An Alpha is sort of a skewed pop song with a good sing a long feel to it. But the album's killer track is Hypochondria Is Not An Illness: a Gypsy Kletzmer hoe down that should have some mad dancing done to it as we find out why it isn't an illness.
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Downright Lazy is the tune where it becomes apparent that they really do have a legend on bass as Paul Slack of the UK Subs and The Flying Padovanis' dubby four string leads this tune off into a nice chilled out space as the lyrics are almost rapped at us telling us to avoid unnecessary violence while we all have the right to be downright lazy! Well I'd be campaigning for that but I'm just too lazy to do anything about it.
Yes, they really do finish with a tune called This Conversation Is Offically Over that could be a break up song or just a damn good way of telling someone to sod off. But the last thing you'd want to do is ignore this upbeat Balkan punk tune with the choir telling us not to suffer fools before Keith Thomson makes certain we know how little chance the object of his ire has of ever being friends again.
Well I'd suggest we all make friends with The Penny Black Remedy and get along to see them at the first opportunity.
The Penny Black Remedy online
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