- Label: 'Last Night From Glasgow'
- Genre: 'Indie'
- Release Date: '4.9.26.'
Our Rating:
The Bristolian is the latest rather downbeat solo album by indie legend Davey Woodward who was in The Brilliant Corners and Experimental Pop Band as well as his own Winter Orphans, the album is a combination of old tunes he has worked on over a long period and polished to a fine sheen and songs instantly created in the studio by Davey alongside Steve Dew, Charlotte Nicholls, Sarah Northeast, Pete Judge, Jonathan (JB) Bewley and Jim Barr who also co-produced the album in Bristol it was mastered by Paul McGeechan.
The album opens with We Are Leaving You bitter reflections on the end of a relationship and everything that drove you apart, from atonal jazz records to an inability to construct flatpack furniture, lost in the interminable silences of this elegiac bitter song, reflecting on how he failed to cope with her walking out with the cat in her arms.
Welcome Here is an invitation to come on in, take off your shoes and eat some food, being welcoming to strangers and those struggling to get by in new towns and countries, the act of sharing a meal being a perfect way to get to know new and old neighbours, rather than being scared of our differences, before a rather dissonant ending.
The Lost Chord is more dance based with a low shuffling beat with french backing vocals from Sarah Northeast over Davey's English mutterings about his endless insomnia and it's impossible to figure out cure. Eventually a super annoying tone or Lost Chord arrives to bug you out of your torpor, the french narration keeps on and Davey resumes his thoughts.
Kiss of Life is super slow reflections, shifting subtle tonalities, for the final glances before the need for the Kiss of Life is apparent, will he be able to survive without you. Denmark is slow strings for being stuck in a repetitious cycle with no way out, words from the corpse lying in his coffin, reflecting on being a good-looking corpse whose very life has now been erased, apart from the question of how life would have differed had he had children.
Them Shakes is for an old man found rolling on the floor having the shakes, the dt's have got him bad, the long-term effects of alcohol have got him, it's a sad sight to see, he's lost most of his faculties apart from the never-ending desire for more booze.
Proletarian Rhapsody is sad reflections for just how tough life is for the proletariat currently, the difference between rich and poor grows, he slowly makes clear he will still be ready to help those who have less than he does.
Poor Boy is what Davey perceives himself as, struggling to get by, he sings about lying in the street while someone relieves themselves at his feet, while he sits and drinks his days away, like an old school alkie, whose wife has literally booted him to the kerb, can he find his way back up from the bottom.
Buy A House is dreaming of being able to buy a house in Clifton, once a reasonable goal, now totally out of reach, this time with reflections of having too many kids and then listing the cheaper Bristolian hoods they might be able to afford, Clifton not even if the Brilliant Corners re-issues went gold.
The album closes with I'm Lucky takes a look at his old neighbourhood and how things have changed over the years, the love he still has for his roots and the people he knows there, from a first girlfriend who he shared a sleeping bag and fleas with, to listening to the Velvets and finding your tribe to enjoy life with. Dreaming of the girl with the wrinkly knees and the friends he's lost over the years.
Find out more at https://shop.lastnightfromglasgow.com/products/davey-woodward-the-bristolian-pre-order https://daveywoodward.bandcamp.com/album/the-bristolian https://www.facebook.com/davey.woodward
