If you hold the view that true country music is the blues with a cowboy hat on then let me introduce you to Michael Gallagher.
His debut album was recorded at Paco Loco's studios in Spain and he sounds like he dwells in some shotgun shack in an American dustbowl town but he actually grew up in Ireland and now lives in London.
His only links to a mining company is that he once knew a drummer who was laid off by one. The 'protest' song he wrote , Ballad Of The Mining Company, became his stage name.
The other power source Gallagher taps into is love. This becomes the metaphor for the title track and the origin of the heartache that drives the songs.
With arrangements that have been stripped back to basics, the record has a low key atmosphere which gives it a distinctly late night vibe. These songs are about days full of dread with just a banjo or pedal steel guitar for company. If it were a Bruce Springsteen album it would have to be Nebraska.
The sense of desolation is summed up in a line from the ballad Lonesome Bird: "Today I told her how I felt but I got no answer back".
|
Another track is called Homeward Bound but is not the Simon & Garfunkel tune and contains none of the sing-along hope and joy of its namesake.
The closing piece, Keep On Rollin', is the cheeriest song but one minute and 40 seconds of optimism seem to be all the singer is able to muster.<
The nine tracks last less than half an hour so the album can easily be played through uninterrupted from start to finish and this is probably how you should hear it, with a glass of wine in hand and the lights turned down low.
Hear The Mining Co. on Bandcamp
|
