Talking Elephant 2024
To bridge the days of yore and those to come, a nomadic troupe of trad-minded minstrels pitch their motley tent in the here and now.
A Live Transmission
This ensemble may have come to exist as a side project of ALBION BAND and to boast the presence of no less than three GRYPHON members in the current line-up, but HOME SERVICE managed, almost from the very start, to forge their own identity – no mean feat on the British folk-rock scene – and retain it after 2011 saw the broken-up collective restored to their 1980 glory. The veterans may have crafted only one studio album since the comeback, and they do source one song from “A New Ground” of 2016 vintage here, but the rest of what was brought onstage and preserved for posterity during the troubadours’ 2024 tour emerges from the past, the past meaning both their first decade and more distant ages, as most of the tunes on display are traditional. With Bob Fox, a well-known artist in his own right, at the fore now, the results of the group’s latest concert endeavor never fail to astound.
It’s not as if they even tried to impress the listener; it’s the way they make gray-haired melodies sparkle afresh. So once opener “Napoleon’s Grande March” segues into “Walk My Way” to merge triumphant belligerence with fraternal solemnity, the scope of the octet’s original electric approach to the essentially acoustic material is unveiled. As Graeme Taylor’s six strings cut through the wall of reeds that will transform “Papa Joe’s Polka” into a smoky, juke-joint jazz number, with Steve King’s sax inviting Andy Findon’s woodwind and Shane Brennan and Andy Lester’s brass to cut the rug, and Fox’s vocals illuminate gloomy elegies “Bonny At Morn” and “Snow Falls” which glimmer with nuanced contemporary arrangements, the instrumentalists stitch various pieces into the equally detailed tapestries. And when words arrive at the joints of such medleys as “My Bonny Boy / Scarecrow / The Lark Ascending” and “The Road To The North / The White Cockade” – the latter potpourri takes Rob Levy’s bass and Michael Gregory’s drums to the fore, and the former reveals the players’ epic outlook and again stresses their antiwar stance – to enhance the groove of musical imagery, a magical, effervescent resonance is there too, reigning supreme.
It’s engulfing the baroque-tinctured “Bramsley” and the riff-driven “Battle Pavanne / Peat Bog Soldiers” in cinematic fire, while “The Old Man’s Song” is all about slow-burn, flamenco-laced balladry. And after the magnificent “Battle Of The Somme” signs off on a retro, bandstand-shaped wave, and the stage light get dim, that blaze and heat stay on as a beacon of eternity, rendering “A Live Transmission” an important sonic document.
*****
