OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'Matthew Edwards and The Unfortunates,'
'Rapid Results College Live at The Spice Of Life'   

-  Album: 'The Country Soul Sessions'
-  Genre: 'Alt/Country' -  Release Date: '5.11.17.'

Our Rating:
This show is part of the Country Soul Sessions at The Spice Of Life and it was nice to go to a gig there again for the first time in quite a while.

First of the bands I saw was Rapid Results College as I totally missed the opening act. They are a rather tepid country act who opened with by far the most memorable tune they played Francines Coat that was a cool country tinged love song.

I quite liked Lovers Take Trains but to be honest as the seventh band I saw last week they really failed to make much of an impression apart from not being as boring or derivative as Fozzy were. That and the fact that the drummer quickly became the main focus of my listening as he switched to using mallets in one song another with the snare turned off etc it wasn't like he was a great drummer but he had more variance in his playing that anyone else in the band.

The only other songs that made an impression of any sorts was the bands theme song Rapid Results that had a good repeating chorus and the closing Shop about wanting to own your own shop.

Matthew Edwards started his set solo on an acoustic for the nicely downbeat Our Boldest Daughter that was a nice wry song. He was then joined by his guitarist Craigus who looked like he should be in a metal band but sounded well psychedelic on California, Can You Wait like he wanted to be in the International Submarine band or something like that.

The rest of the band then joined them for Folklore which is of course the title track from the band's latest album and it sounded mighty fine live even with a drummer who had only learnt half the songs he was playing they still sounded pretty good.

With plenty of cheeky In between song banter it was about time to sing about When We arrived at The Mountain that had a good chill out Sunday evening feel to it and also made me feel a little bit un-sartorial compared too many of the audience.

Lazy really sounded like it ought to be a single when played live like this as it's the band's catchiest song by far. I Can Move the Moon is a hell of a claim on the night of the Full Moon especially when it has no howling in it whatsoever just some cool restrained playing.

Ghost isn't a song about a bad movie but just another song about the ghosts many of us have swirling around us. They closed the set with Birmingham a sort of paean to Matthew's home town and saying goodbye to all sorts of things.

They got a deserved encore and reprised When We arrived At the Mountain for a slightly edgier version than the first version of it that only left one question unanswered were they country or soul or not quite either well you may need to buy a copy of Folklore to figure that out.
  author: simonovitch

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------