Trent Miller, Time Between Us, Bucketfull of Brains Records

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BOB801Back in 2014 Blabber’n’smoke was very taken by Trent Miller’s Burnt Offerings comparing him with Gene Clark even. Well, the Italian born, London based singer/songwriter has done it again with the follow up, Time Between Us, another fine collection of songs which again show Miller’s affinity with the late Clark. While it doesn’t quite match the heights of Burnt Offerings, being less adventurous overall, there’s still an aching and deeply romantic touch throughout. However, with the album written in the throes of a divorce, the overall mood is dark and reflective, many of the songs referring to a lover leaving while the singer hides in dark corners in bars nursing his wounds.

Miller plumbs the depths of despair in a couple of the songs here. Moonlight Cafe is a dreamlike swoon into a world of regret and refuge with an arrangement which recalls The Blue Nile while Motel Rooms of Ocean Blue has the singer drifting between bars and his lonesome motel room, his solipsistic musings amplified by the mournful strings and horns adorning the song. Still dark but somewhat leavened by more upbeat arrangements there’s the shimmering guitars of After The Great Betrayal and the Beatles’ like  lyricism on the closing She’s Leaving The Place For Good.

The remainder of the album is more akin to its predecessor. The title song cracks the album open with Dylan like harmonica over a fine folk rock scrabble as Miller delivers an excellent song suffused with regret despite its surging chorus and surely the similarity in the title to The Byrds’ Time Between is no accident. Miller’s similarity in his vocal style to that of Gene Clark’s is immediately apparent in the sweeping and string laden How Soon is Never and he revisits this on the mainly acoustic Bonfires of Navarino Road, a rendering, it seems, of his first encounter with his ex, which blossoms into another string laden lament. There’s more shades of Clark on Lady Margaret Street although here the band shift into a muscular chunky mode and then there’s the jangled glory of Days in Winter which is not dissimilar to some of the songs on the recently released Bennett Wilson Poole album.  With a definite Dylan touch in the jumble of guitars, organ and harmonica which inhabit Since You’ve Gone and a slight sense of a mellow Guy Kuyser on the gentle waves of Lament Of The Sea Miller continues to set his compass to those of his influences but, as before, he treads his own path only this time it’s a somewhat forlorn trek.

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Benjamin Folke Thomas. Rogue State Of Mind. Bucketfull Of Brains

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Reviewing Benjamin Folke Thomas‘ debut album, Too Close To Here, Blabber’n’Smoke detected several of the Swedish artist’s influences jostling for position throughout. While Thomas was able to corral these into what was indeed a very fine opening statement the album did have a homemade charm having been recorded quickly and live in the studio with a resultant cliff edge tension on some of the numbers. Rogue state Of Mind is a very different beast; self assured and polished, it was recorded with Thomas’ regular band in Gothenburg and sounds like a group as opposed to a singer with a backing band. While none of the songs were rehearsed prior to going in they’ve made full use of the studio to flesh out the sound adding keys and brass to several of the songs while Thomas’ voice has filled out, less gruff and rushed than on Too Close To Here.
So, polished and ready to go Thomas and his band (Henning Sernhede on electric and acoustic guitar, lap steel, keys, pedal steel, mandolin and banjo, Johannes Mattsson, electric and stand up bass, keys and Jonas Abrahamsson, drums, percussion and keys) set out their wares and the result is in the main mighty fine. Like Danny And The Champions Of The World they manage to churn up a heady brew of urban Americana with a hint of The E Street Band on occasion and in Sernhede they have a guitarist able to soar when required. It’s apparent from the opening guitar curls of Break The Border that they’re a confident bunch with the song a zestful mid paced rocker with a touch of The Allmans in the guitar breaks. They then take a left turn however on the following Gettysburg, an acoustic tale that trots along with a steady although increasingly punchy pace, adorned throughout with some very tasty lap steel licks. The time signatures here recall Dylan circa Blood On The Tracks and the Dylan reference is reinforced by Thomas’ lyrics about a mystical camp whore. Riding the rhythm his voice rings with poetic fire as he sings “ in the cool fountain evening when she danced beneath the rain like random rhythms that drive black dust insane like an arrow screaming at her pleasure.” Bulletproof is more pared back, a trio of guitar, bass clarinet and mandobird cast the song in aspic as Thomas wrings out his emotions in a very fine wearied style.
The band jump back in for the brisk and declamatory Futile Blues where Thomas sounds like John Stewart in full voice before Broke Down Train pulls in with an ambient sound that recalls a Daniel Lanois production, a hypnotic haze pervading the song. Pauper To A King is a claustrophobic and grimy urban tale leavened only by some sleek guitar lines which snake around the funk fuelled bass line on a song that one could imagine Danny and his Champs doing. Dream About You Baby is a funky shuffle of a song with female backing vocals and honking sax with Thomas leering somewhat as he dreams about his girl in his bed as he seduces her by playing Blond On Blonde. There’s a darker side on the next song, Woman I Love which starts out with a chilling neon lit noirish feel but is eventually let down as the intensity fades towards the end. There’s a dip into Townes Van Zandt territory on the stripped down acoustic lament of Married Blues before Thomas closes the album with the pleading and powerful Little Too Late, an ambiguous tale that could be about a stalker or a lover about to lose his partner, whatever, Thomas imbues the song with a passion, his voice bursting at times as the tune climaxes with a wonderful solo from Sernhede. Heady stuff.

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Trent Miller. Burnt Offerings. Bucketfull of Brains Records

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It’s funny how you think you have your finger on the pulse when it comes to what’s happening in your end of the music scene and then something comes in with a great pedigree but it’s news to you. So it was when this album from Trent Miller, his third it appears, popped through the post and floored us. Imagine if you will an artist who has the romantic lyricism of Gene Clark, the LA voodoo of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the retrospective roots appreciation of Richard Hawley. Picture a young Italian musician feverishly devouring tales and music of far away heroes as he scraps around for a living before eventually coming to London where he spends several more years scrapping around before some discerning folk lend an ear.

That’s essentially the story of Trent Miller. From Turin, he couldn’t fill a phone box in his native land and it was only after several years of itinerant jobbing in London that he was able to release a home recorded album, Cerebus, which led to his signing by Bucketfull of Brains who fitted him up with a band and released Welcome To Inferno Valley in 2012 leading to critical acclaim. A raw boned collection of country tinged folk, Welcome To Inferno Valley had Miller’s sinewy voice set over a primarily acoustic band setting. Burnt Offerings continues in this vein for the most part but his voice sounds more assured while the music is less rustic and more arranged with a greater emphasis on electric guitar and pedal steel.

Miller has an affinity with Gene Clark and the former Byrd’s spirit casts deep shadows on this album. Songs such as the title track and Pictures From A Different World have the literacy of Clarks’s song poems while the musicians hark back to the dappled sunlight picking of his late sixties forays into folk rock. Your Black Heart harks back to the sumptuous arrangements of Clark’s spell with the Gosdin Brothers while Sands Of Time sounds like a lost nugget from ’65. If this were all then one could dismiss the album as simply a (very fine) simulacrum of one of Miller’s heroes but he soaked up more than Clark in his dog days and he amalgamates his influences well here. Burnt Offerings opens the album with a loping rhythm and spectral guitar swoons that recall Lee Hazlewood as Miller sings of cathedrals in the desert. It’s hypnotic and beguiling. Lupita Dream sinks deeper into this dreamscape, lush and intoxicating it sounds like Jeffrey Lee Pierce wandering, stoned and immaculate as the guitars slide ecstatically by. The harmonica on Hearts On A Wire grounds the dream bringing it back to a back porch kitchen sink drama but before the listener has time to wallow in the comfort of the singer’s despair All These Violent Years slams into view. A metaphysical take on life and love with driving guitars, thumping drums and soaring vocals it’s somewhat of a tour de force leaving the listener exhausted afterwards. Sorrow Knows Better recalls another of Miller’s favourites, Guy Kyser of Thin White Rope with a sludgier sound and piercing guitars he almost steers into a piratical heavy metal shanty. Finally Miller dips a toe into the current guitar based psychedelic smorgasbord as epitomised by Israel Nash Gripka on On The Stone Beach which has the mystical Clark vibe and some very sweet fat guitar shining throughout the song.

Miller might be a product of his influences but the whole is better than the parts. It’s an album that will thrill those aware of the antecedents and beguile those who aren’t. The album is released on 14th April, you can order it here

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Benjamin Folke Thomas. Too Close To Here. (Bucketfull of Brains)

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A Swede domiciled in the UK Benjamin Folke Thomas has been making a bit of a name for himself on the London scene as a singer/songwriter in the Dylan mould and an accomplished guitar picker. He released an EP in 2010 and now follows that up with his debut album Too Close To Here which does beg comparison with Mr. Zimmerman from time to time but allows him to shine as his own man albeit with a slew of influences and which raises a suspicion that had he been the next Dr. Who he would have set the Tardis to land on the cusp of the sixties and seventies.
Thomas wanders through various styles on the album with some songs reminiscent of the dexterity of Pentangle while there is a whiff of the romanticism of Al Stewart (before he went all FM) along with a hint of the American influenced pub rock that included Ducks Deluxe, Brinsley Schwartz,Sniff ‘n’ the Tears and even the early Dire Straits especially on the opening song, Someday. Love Somebody which follows has an endearing rough and ready delivery with the band teetering on the edge of losing the beat but always recovering just in time. Thomas next delivers his first killer song, Blues For You which mixes Dylan, Fred Neil and Davey Graham in equal measure as his gruff voice reaches back into sixties folk blues and comes up with a bittersweet love song that stands up well in comparison to many standards of that era with lines like ” my lungs are heavy and my skin feels weak my soul rattles every time you speak your eyes are pretty but all I see is sin.”
Extend No Greeting is another superb song which recalls the raga guitar sagas folk listened to while wrapped up in fragrant smoke while the emotive Bye Bye Baby (Bye Bye) stands out by dint of the lyrics which name check Warren Zevon while recalling Bruce Springsteen over a backing which could have been laid down by the Band on Planet Waves.
All this talk of influences runs the risk of tagging Thomas as an “oldies” or tribute act but he has the talent to channel these influences into an album that’s vibrant and exciting so that the motor mouth talking blues of OK Blues takes Dylan by the throat and drags him into the 21st Century while I’m Alive resurrects Ronnie Lane for one more whirl around the campfire. In the meantime a song like Let Her Down, the centrepiece of the album that has a spine chilling feel as the guitars summon up supernatural sounds is proof that Thomas can update a folk ballad tradition and add his own lyrical sparkle to it. Superb stuff.

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