Quietly rising from the ashes of a band called Volcanic Earth, County Cork quartet COALTRAAN (pronounced ‘Coltrane’, as in John) have been perfecting their craft over the past few years. Due to the usual circumstances of daily commitments away from band activities, it’s taken them a while to reach album status, but perseverance held sway and they finally got there.
Hearing their debut I’m glad they had the will and belief to make it a reality, because it’s a very good start indeed. Coaltraan are accomplished players with scant regard for the ways of the zeitgeist, but – importantly – their virtuosity never gets in the way of their songs’ emotional payload and ‘Greatest Surprise’ is all the better for it.
Seeing them live recently, one of the things that struck me about them was their ability to lock into a groove within seconds and this quality has been successfully nailed down here. Several of the stand-out tracks – ‘Hope You Don’t Change’, ‘Ginger Lee’ and the sinewy title track – are built upon Alan Dowdall’s fluid, Jah Wobble-style bass motifs and George Duggan’s inventive drumming and their shape-shifting rhythms are the ideal canvas for the colours painted in by John Jermyn’s subtle lead guitar and Jack Doherty’s jazzy flute and mellow sax.
Elsewhere, Coaltraan demonstrate that they’re equally convincing when serving up languid, soulful fare like the vulnerable ‘Aching on the Inside’ or low-key or brighter, breezy jazz-pop anthems like ‘Loudin’ or the closing ‘Pentonville.’ John Jermyn’s whispered and cracked voice invites comparisons to the likes of JJ Cale and Mark Knopfler and it oozes blues and experience on the album’s two exquisite ballads, ‘What Fire’ and the excellent ‘Until the Rains are Overhead’. For me, this latter is arguably the album’s strongest track, with its’ restless lyrics (“I never wanted a regular wage or a home to keep/ but to feel the freedom of the sea and the richness of what’s underneath”) and yearning to escape the shackles of ‘normal’ life sounding more attractive than ever in the melee of surviving these trying times.
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Coaltraan’s fluid, chameleonic music blends blues, jazz, pop and Prog in a seamless fashion which never seems to lose its’ sense of wonder, even though many of their songs are clearly familiar with being on the receiving end of life’s harder knocks. ‘Greatest Surprise’ is a testament to both determination and talent and now it’s here, the very least we can do is encourage Coaltraan to keep steaming on into the future.
Coaltraan on MySpace
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