Other Reviews

01/10/2009

Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed

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Show of Hands

Show of Hands twentieth album and still no sign of predictability or laurels being sat upon. They even have the temerity to start the album with Steve singing the trad 'lowland' starkly unaccompanied. Initial fears that the album will be all in this vein, since Phil 'Ahab' Beer spent the summer AWOL on the Tall Ships race, are soon allayed by an album that surprises, defies expectations and delights in equal measure.

The surprises are some choice duets; Jim Causley and the Delarre brothers feature on Napoli, a wonderful trademark Knightley song oozing with wry observance and his perceptive wit. On the Keys of Canterbury they have drawn a performance from Jackie Oates that is an utter revelation, the combination of her unexpectedly sensual delivery with Knightley's gravelly tones is spine tingling.

The songs deal with everything from the global financial meltdown to Darwin's theories, Knightley's ability to conjure a whole gallery of images from a few words is the ongoing delight. IED for example ostensibly is about the grim fate that has befallen many of our troops in Afghanistan, through the pure magic of the Knightley pen however it becomes the metaphor for a multitude of the nasty twists of fate that can befall us all.

Expectations of a continuation from Witness, their last studio album produced by Simon Emmerson, are rightly confounded by the angle that Stu Hanna has taken as producer of this album. Before Witness Steve and Phil took the decision to not produce their own material and instead work with selected producers that would help them develop their sound. Hanna boldly puts Steve's vocal right up in the mix, he seems to have a real gift for pinpointing the essence of a song and then weaving the music around it. AIG sounds deceptively sparse whilst having a whole host of guest vocalists and musicians performing on it.

Peter Gabriel's Secret World is a worthy inclusion and is Phil's only lead vocal, there is something of a lack of Beer's trademark flourishes, the fiddle, slide guitar and his voice on AIG, hardly surprising considering his activities this year. The unexpected result is a shake up in the trademark SOH sound that will inject fresh variety into their live performances.

www.showofhands.co.uk