#0084: The Beau Brummels - Triangle [****]

This is a surprising little album.  The country and folk influences are clear from the outset but there's a lot more to it than diddly-twang-dicky-dido, "My mama calls me Lizbeth but I got a 3-inch-diiiick."  


The songs are built on a core of acoustic guitars, accordions and violins but there are some choice decisions made with the layered orchestrations, most immediately noticeable on Only Dreaming Now.  The song is one of those with no chorus, but rather a crescendo on a strongly resolving melody at the end of each verse that serves the purpose after a fashion.  

The percussion is minimal, letting us hear the delicately darting strings underpinning the vocal. 
When that crescendo comes, it is a sparse bass drum that enters in support of the swelling strings, not obliterating them.

The progressions too aren't your usual country standard, to which the opening track Are You Happy is testament.  All the way through you get different rhythms and cadences and his voice has a rich timbre.

Now, there is a certain conversational tone to some of the words and a distinct similarity to a particular guitar-playing rodent, who by now I'm sure I need not name.

I mention this, not because it's off-putting but because the singer on this album is doing exactly that: singing.  Fans of Dylan have berated me for slagging him off just because I don't understand his style.  This album is my answer to those people.  The vocal here is very much a-la He-With-Eyes-Like-A-Robber's-Dog but I'm enjoying it immensely.

Other conspicuously good takes found herein include The Painter Of Women, which again impresses with its arrangement, prodigious in its sparsity.  The Keeper Of Time is just an old stomper, but it's full of life and that mix, that gloriously well pitched mix helps it carry you away, as indeed it should.  

Watch out too for Nine Pound Hammer which is a great little groover that builds in intensity up to a frantic climax.

Most of the songs come in closer to 2 minutes than 3, so the appearance of The Wolf Of Velvet Fortune at nearly 5 minutes constitutes Progressive Rock.  It's an odd song with violent changes of mood, which are a bit harsh on the ear but they ease back quickly, seemingly self aware. 

It's that kind of control and attention that leave me feeling relaxed and ready for a bit of fun by the time the old hillbilly standard Old Kentucky Home kicks in as an epilogue to this, a most unexpected pleasure.