‘Death Of A Prizefighter’ is a fairytale of an album bursting at the seams with dark moody colours reflective of Bone-Box’s rainy home city of Manchester. Full of life, irony and sardonic humour embroidered with a multi instrumental imagination and a voice soaked in whisky and dragged backwards through a carton of Marlboro Red’s, ‘Bone-Box’ already have and could quite easily go another 12 rounds with the best in the business.
Haunting brilliance on an unparalleled level, ‘Death Of A Prizefighter’ is a quite unique sounding album, bridging the Anglo-American gap between country, blues and jazz on both sides of the pond and evident with tracks such as ‘That Secret War’ and ‘Foul Weather’. Jay Taylor’s raspy low-level growl is the mainstay of the album and a constant throughout and everything else revolves and evolves around this.
That is not to say that the vocals are the only redeeming and memorable features here, quite the opposite. Each and every song seems to have it’s own central theme, or at the least, featured instrument. Whether it be violin (‘Dragging Wires’), mariachi trumpet (take your pick but especially ‘St Jay’s Infirmary’), piano (‘Talking Christ Down From The Cross’) or one of several forms of guitar (‘The Devil Is In The Detail) and the majority of the tracks are so heavily layered and interwoven as to include and involve each other, in particular the closing hell raising track ‘Toasting The God Of Graceless Living’ in which all and every instrument embrace in a sparkling come one come all sing song of a track complete with ‘Fairytale Of New York’ esque female vocal dove tailing. Experimental instrumental interplay is also at work throughout the album such as with the mechanical, layered, urgent tension of ‘All My Problems Are Caused By Other People’ which sounds like the insides of a fax machine gone wrong and the short lived, shifting, trumpet infused ‘Return To St Jay’s Infirmary’
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There’s also an over-riding hint of resignation throughout, but not in a dismissive, downtrodden and thoroughly miserable fashion. But more a sense of unfolding experiences and life’s lesson’s learnt. The melodically sound and punctuated hooks and riffs that are scattered so broadly throughout only serve to illustrate that Bone-Box aren’t your average have a go wannabe’s, but fully fledged musicians in complete control of their respective and collective gift. Lyrically ‘Death Of A Prizefighter’ offers up an intelligent insight into to the life of anybody and everybody that has carved out an existence for themselves against all odds. Brooding, moody and pensive lyric’s such as “And he’s talking Christ down from the cross, making no sense at all costs” and “I was born like a rabbit from a sack, hit my stride and never looked back” are just a few examples of the written brilliance that stops you dead in your tracks to actually think about what you’re listening to and what the message is. However, what that message is, as always, is open to discussion. Listening to ‘Death Of A Prizefighter’ is a journey of epic proportions, a veritable self-questioning kaleidoscope of idea’s, sounds and musings; and if you dare enter, you might just find salvation.
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