Hubbadillia

3 Daft Monkeys

A big smile... That's the first emotion that anyone who has heard the Monkeys music comes out with when their name is mentioned. This, their third album, is a distillation of everything that makes them so popular and engaging live.

The title track is an upbeat footstomper driven by guitar and Athene's superb fiddle playing. a song about a party, 'hubbadillia' being a cornish word describing such a situation (it says here on the liner notes anyways). It's Folk music, but not as we know it Jim... Actually it is folk music, new, contemporary and original folk music, no finger in the ear laments here for the clearances or the poor farmworker run over by a runaway carthorse. Perhaps this is why the folk community can't quite get to grips with them.

The following songs have a lot to live up to after such a belter of an album opener, luckily they all do. As well as great musicianship and vocal performance there are some crackingly observational and incisive lyrics -

'Step out of life and look back in
See what a state we're getting in
Take in the bigger picture
See if reality hits you...'
- Tres Cervezas

The three members of the band, Tim on vocals and guitar, Athene on violin and vocals, and Jamie on Bass clearly enjoy what they are doing, these songs were all largely recorded live in the studio. They clearly ride on the energy they get from interacting with each other, nothing here is contrived, guitar and violin flow around one another in spirals of of invention. Vocals ride on it all with mirth and joy.

Then there's a song like 'The Man', a song in memory of Tim's father who died in 2004... as much a testimony to a father/son relationship as a reflection on a life and a character. You realise that music can express so much more than the words on a page. the next song, 'Stop', carries the more serious tone on in a tirade against the state of our world. So all human life is here, it's an album that looks at the stae of our world on every level and draws some scary conclusions... Oh come on, move the tables out of the way and let's have a dance.

Iain Hazlewood