Nick Dalton reviews Reg Meuross SONGS ABOUT A TRAIN Hatsongs Records
“Songs that needed to be heard”
Songs that needed to be heard. This set (hot on the heels of the impressive FARAWAY PEOPLE) is actually a bit of a scrapbook, a collection of songs written and recorded between 2013 and 2017 yet otherwise unreleased….the result (which comes as a signed limited edition) is impeccable – and you’d never know it wasn’t recorded as an album.
As a solo artist, Meuross sometimes finds himself overshadowed in his work with others (as half of the inspired Panic Brothers and as part of Hank Wangford’s travelling band). Yet over the years he’s made something like a dozen delectable solo albums, a singer-songwriter who often drifts into folk and country, something very English yet taking on the world. This set (hot on the heels of the impressive FARAWAY PEOPLE) is actually a bit of a scrapbook, a collection of songs written and recorded between 2013 and 2017 yet otherwise unreleased (the second such set following 2011’s THE DREAMED AND THE DROWNED).
photocredit Pete Grubb
It kicks off with the delightful ‘Letting Go’, a low key band a air with bassist Simon Edwards and drummer Roy Dodds (both ex-Fairground Attraction, the latter also a Langford teammate) and keyboards by Rabbit Bundrick, once of Free, now a Who stalwart). Other than that it’s simply Meuross on acoustic guitar on wistful, delicate tracks such as ‘Little Acts Of Vengeance’ and ‘Martin’, adding harmonica on ‘The Angel Maker’ and switching to banjo, gently-plucked, on the title track with its air of a dustbowl soundtrack. ‘Idaho’ is a perhaps the most overtly country, melancholy and beautiful, something you could imagine of a jukebox in a roadhouse along a lonesome road. Produced by Meuross and Dodds, the result (which comes as a signed limited edition) is impeccable – and you’d never know it wasn’t recorded as an album.
