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Review: 'Rothko'
'A Young Fist Curled Around a Cinder for a Wager'   

-  Album: 'A Young Fist Curled Around a Cinder for a Wager' -  Label: 'Trace Recordings'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '21st November 2016'-  Catalogue No: 'TRACECD018'

Our Rating:
It’s been barely weeks – or so it seems – since Rothko’s first album in a decade, ‘Discover the Lost’ landed. And now, featuring Band of Holy Joy’s Johny Brown, Mark Beazely returns with ‘A Young Fist…’ Containing 11 tracks, recorded live to tape in a single take, Brown throws narratives, vignettes and images out over tetchy, wandering basslines with a loose twitchiness.

There’s a keen sense of immediacy about ‘A Young Fist’, and it’s not only the result of the recording and production, although the simple bass / vocal arrangement does serve to render the songs direct, and Brown’s voice, which has hints of Richard Butler’s ragged rasp about it, is often more focused on delivering the lyrics in a way which is honest and carries emotion rather than melody. While in places gritty and raw, there’s a heavy grain of nostalgia running through, which represents a continuation of the nagging longing intimated in its predecessor, and as (again) strongly alluded to in the cover art.

People, places, events all past and slowly fading into history: the song titles almost tell the tales themselves (take, for example, ‘The Mainline Landscape of my Youth Remains Seared in My Mind’). Contrasting with the ramshackle punk-infused folk of tracks like ‘One Day I Will Get There’ and ‘We Have Great Fun’. ‘The Rose Grows Tender in the Shade of the Garden’ is sparse and bleak, yet strangely uplifting. In avoiding the pitfalls of sentimentality or wistfulness, ‘A Young Fist’ is engaging and altogether more compelling in its emotions.


  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Rothko - A Young Fist Curled Around a Cinder for a Wager