Cherry Red 2023
English minstrel locates mysteries all around to crack enigmas in the world where sightlessness reigns.
Listening to another set of epistles from the Leeds minstrel – his tenth gospel in ten glorious years – is not a simple task, as this album seems to find Beau mellowed out in terms of melody and to suggest Trevor Midgley could despair looking at the global scene which doesn’t get better despite both his romantic views and scathing sarcasm. What’s not as easy is to blame the veteran in falling under the influence of disappointment and losing his edge as a result, and to think the songs on “Kingdom Of The Blind” sound a tad too even because of that; after all, the artist whose ballads used to entrance John Peel has managed to remain the same sweet-voiced performer he was more than five decades ago.
Don’t be fooled, then, by Beau’s apparent lack of bite on opener “Right Side Of History”: following up on what "Al Killem's Final Show" delivered in 2022, this platter allows no digging in the past, yet it’s still concerned with establishing one’s place in the grand temporal scheme of things. That’s why the folksy strum of Trevor’s faithful 12-string guitar and his high-pitched vocals throw a delicate hook at the “woke” crowd and take a look into the future when some “folks might deride what we’re doing today” – the deeds social media protect us from, as determined by “Impure Thought” – and when some bard might decide we were wonderful. No wonder we meet the same drunk minstrel in the reined-in fervor of “Compassionate Ways” and the barroom singer’s well-rounded, merry nemeses in “Mr Scallywag” and “The Celestial Engineer” which unleash the fiery satire Midgley’s fans are tuned into before the soft strands of “Varsity Man” and “Feedback Loop” offer them a mirror to check whether agents of the self-serving bogus elite or of agitprop creep up from behind to steal their soul.
Hardly so, of course, given the self-conscious remarks “Reassuring News” sends into the ether and the martyrdom thoughts “Icarus Wings” propels beyond the stratosphere on Beau’s fluttery stanzas until “Skin In The Game” serves PTSD-stricken military men with a harsh truth about civil existence – the life stationed far from that of the beautiful people “Exceptional!” focuses on and “Rotation Song” frowns at only to laugh. However, the enchanting “The One-Eyed Man” plants a titular phrase into Ukrainian battlefields and reveals the philosophical roots of the war, while “The Dystopian National Anthem” turns the tragedy inside out to ridicule our approach to social issues and political agendas. If we can stand and smile listening to it, Beau’s difficult task has been accomplished.
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