‘Whatever Happened To The Rockingbirds?’ asked this much-vaunted London-based roots-rockers’ second LP in 1995. It might, however, be a more apt title for this belated third offering from Alan Tyler’s merry men, which arrives a yawning 18 years down the line.
Where the time went, I’m not entirely sure at the time of writing, but whether it was those time-honoured ‘musical differences’ or something altogether more insidious that forced ‘em out of the game, it’s heartening to discover their third LP, the self-explanatory ‘The Return Of The Rockingbirds’ bringing them confidently back into the ring and ready to roll with the punches once again.
Durable, anthemic rocker ‘Til Something Better Comes Along’ kicks things off in no-nonsense style, with the band inhabiting familiar Jayhawks/ Crazy Horse territory and a defiant Tyler declaring “I’ll drink the ale and sing these sad old country songs until something better comes along.”
Thankfully, that point hasn’t come to pass yet, but while there’s more to come in a similar vein (the dramatic, but actually entirely personal ‘Stop The War’, the Scorchers-esque bar-room rockin’ of ‘Fixing The Room In Your Dream’), it’s often when they take it down a notch or two that this newly-reconfigured Rockingbirds really score. To this end, there’s the dog-eared, but jauntily attractive ‘Juliet’ with its’ wheezy, Dylan-esque harmonica and sprightly mandolin or the sunburnt ‘Lady Of The Llamas’ with its hovering, vibrato guitar figures and Tyler’s deep, atmosphere-quaffing vocals.
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Elsewhere, it veers a fair way from seamless. The odd, but ultimately rewarding front porch whisper ‘Country Humming’ takes a bit of work, as does the deliberately unsteady ‘The Lonely & The Drunk’ which inevitably closes up this here honky tonk. The LP’s nadir, though, is surely the knockabout ‘Brand New Plan’ with its Chet Atkins-style guitar figures, even if its aftertaste is horribly tough to shake. No such problems with either the melting, horn-assisted ‘You Can’t Win The Heart That You Broke’ or the tremulous ballad ‘Now I Do’, though: both of them are steeped in loss and the realisation that one chance too many has been squandered and they’re all the more gloriously affecting for that.
It is, of course, a whole different Americana-related world to the one The Rockingbirds left in 1995 and this time certainly won’t be afforded the NME-sponsored hype that helped launch them around the turn of that decade. They’re in very good hands at Loose Music, though, and ‘The Return Of The Rockingbirds’ finds them confidently putting on the gloves and coming out fighting. Seconds out. Round three.
Loose Music online
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