Lets take this track by track:

Consequence Free: everyone's said 'nuff about this already, so I'll leave it at this - great song, great singalong, wicked video :o) Makes me want to "slip off the edge and never worry 'bout the fall...." Despite the fact that they're not going to be there, this may very well end up being the feelgood anthem to my annual "do what I want" weekend, otherwise known as the Cambridge Folk Festival. Can you imagine me sitting there, apparently listening to someone else, while being plugged in to Consequence Free on the Walkman? I can ;o)

Turn: Ooh, dizzy time! This one is like an aural recreational drug, only legal. All repetitive musical themes and visual imagery put into words....... it intrigues me that the music is circular, and the words are kind of more linear; the end of a bad age, and the start of a new age of economic and personal development. It's a song for a hiatus, "a lost bird caught in mid-migration", eager for the flight onwards to a warmer place......... The bird theme seems to be repeated in Bob's whistle trills, which sound almost like the blackbird that wakes me up at 5 am every day. The layered, interweaving vocal harmonies on this track are going to keep me happy for a long time :o) Oh, and that close bare harmony at the end - straight down the spine! Very wicked, in an Alan sense.

Jack Hinks: Not sure about this one, it's a little bit too "Pogues" for me, even if Alan can sing much better than Shane McGowan. ("Irish Rover", anyone?) A good enough song though, and whoever wrote it loved to play with words. Not my favorite, because there's no real story, but the b'ys seem to be having fun with it and the whole 'rover' theme. No real complaints.

Demasduit Dream: Is Bob heading down the folk-rock anthem path? With the choruses on this one and "Bad As I Am", it seems so. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I would like to see his lyrical turn be put to good use in a slushy ballad ;o) I'm a bit ambiguous on this one, too, mainly because the musical theme is a little "wild west" - some motifs, especially the bass line and some of the guitar work is a straight rip-off of a much heard "cowboy" theme.... apt, given the song's subject, but a little bit stereotyped. I do like the combination of the clipped, breathless lyrics in the chorus and the siren drone in the background, which lend a real sense of urgency to the song.

Boston And St John's: Okay, this one is set to eclipse the Hothouse Flowers' "Don't Go" as my all-time favorite song. I just have to stop what I'm doing and listen to this one. Such a haunting, lonely low whistle, and you can hear the anguish at leaving a loved one in the pleas for patience and continuting love "you can tell me what you want, just tell me that you'll wait for me" ...... someone pass me a tissue *sniff* It's hard to believe it was written on one short journey. Beautiful.

Margarita: kind of wrecks the mood that "B&StJ" leaves behind. I have two words for this song - Rod Stewart. . Sorry, Séan! Erm - I guess it's a bit of fun. It reminds me of David Essex, and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, for anyone that's heard of them. Maybe the b'ys got a bit TOO into London culture on one of their visits ;o) This one's singalongable, but I'm still not sure. The instrumental hooks are OK, but not as catchy as some others on the album.

Trois Navires de Blé: this one, I like! Can't understand a word without looking at the translation..... but I like it. I can imagine a class full of primary kids singing this one, actually! Kinda like an adult nursery rhyme - light & fluffy, including the instrumental. A joyful, playful song, both lyrically and musically. Maybe we'll see Bob venturing on to the pipes for this one at some point - he'd make a good Paddy Moloney ;o)

Ferryland Sealer: I last heard this one when I was playing with the college folk group, and I absolutely hated it! Having said that, it's nice to hear it done as it should be (I got a pleasant surprise when I first listened to the Rankin Street tape).... we used to do it as a ballad, if you can imagine. Though I'm vegetarian and an animal rights campaigner, I don't take this song as anything nasty - it's plain and simple a slice of time and location. A snapshot of a point in history. Whoever first wrote it would probably be scratching their heads in bewilderment at the effects it's had in here! It's funny that songs like "Charlotte Dymond", an explicit tale of a vicious murder, don't generate that kind of shock reaction......... Back to facts: this song is a bit of Newfoundland history, and has a bloody good tune (if you'll excuse the pun).

Can't Stop Falling: the blue plaque for Charing Cross is in production. ;o) ............. One thing that makes me laugh - the smile in Alan's voice when he says "I told her I was Gemini" - a 'little nothing' as my Irish auntie says, but I like it! This isn't gonna be as much of a singalong as some of the others - say "Consequence Free", but it's a good tune and a nice little story all the same. And it tells you what these guys get up to on tour ..... ;o)

Old Brown's Daugher: a delight. Beautiful harmonies, a great range of expression in Alan's voice. I love it, and have done since I first heard it at Dingwalls last August, when us audience couldn't figure out when the song actually finished :o) I've got the hang of it now, honest! This one's been dissected thoroughly already, so I'll leave it there. But I sure would like to be the girl in question ;o) And I can't listen to it without picturing Alan's range of rubber-faced expressions and the Bob Stance!

I'm A Rover: Kind of catchy, and I like the fiddle breaks, but I find the song annoying for one reason:- the time signature doesn't quite match with the natural rythym of the words, which makes the whole vocal kind of stilted and artificial. Not that Séan has any trouble belting it out anyway, but it just doesn't sound like it should be sung that way? I'd be tempted to translate it into another language or two, just to see if the words could fit any better......

Captain Wedderburn: a lovely, gentle tale of a woman who thinks she's got the upper hand! Of course, in the real world, the man wouldn't have a clue, and she'd be safe ;o) I like the intricate finger-picking guitar, and love Séan's soft vocal - very romantic. He's very flexible vocally, when you contrast this with "Mari-Mac". And I can't see that the woman in question here would be too annoyed at being successfully seduced by this charming character (be it the Captain or Séan!)

Bad As I Am: Another song of roving and begging for a loved one to be patient and faithful -"on the road again, I pay the fine/where now is the friend .... I leave behind" . There seems to be a sub-theme running through this one of personal development, possibly of a young man slowly realising that his rose-tinted romantic dreams are not necessarily what happens in the real world...... "this time I know you're not the answer to my prayers/And I have grown with each disappointment through the years/ But as bad as I am........ I'm still here" . A song of a growing relationship and faithfulness through all the hardships, with the repeated "will you, will you be mine?" and "I'm still here". I like this one, too, as you can tell.

Ohboy, I hope you all have plenty of time to spare. I'm still here. General stuff now:

Despite the more complex production on this album, I'm cheered to hear the occasional off-the-cuff comment/exhortion left in the mix, like Alan's "encore" on Trois Navires de Blé, and "Go, Bob" at the instrumental in "I'm A Rover"; and the muted cheer you can hear before the instrumental break in "Ferryland Sealer". Makes it more 'real' somehow.

Themes: Was it a conspiracy or an indication of how 'in tune' these guys really are:- 2 'temptation' songs, "Can't Stop Fallin'" and "Margarita" ..... 2 'please wait for me' songs in "Bad As I Am" and "Boston and St John's", and a continuing narrative on the 'rover' theme in general running through most of the songs? Plus the circular, cyclical thread that Dr T pointed out before.

Downside: I really want to hear Bob and Darrell sing more! Darrell has a great voice (I've never really heard Bob's solo to be sure, but he's impressive enough in the background!), and I have no idea why they didn't force him to sing at least one track. Maybe next time *sigh*. How about we pester the band to record "Johnny MacEldoo" on the next album?

Lastly:

I now have problems figuring where earlier posts on the lack of uptempo singalongs came from.... I mean, there's "Consequence Free", "Can't Stop Fallin'", "Jack Hinks", "Bad As I Am" for the good vibes, and "Demasduit Dream" for the on-the-edge feeling and a very singalongable chorus. Yes, I made that word up.

I think maybe people forget that all the old favorites from Up and Play were once different and unfamiliar - isn't that what attracted most of us to Great Big Sea in the first place? Something different from the norm, with a strong sense of folk (in the 'people' sense of the word), history and pride, with a good dose of drinking and womanizing thrown in? It's all still here, but we gotta learn new choruses, is all. Most of us (myself included) associate Great Big Sea so securely with certain songs (not even certain types of songs) - like "Goin' Up", "Mari-Mac", "Run Runaway", "When I'm Up".......and we so love to hear those songs, every chance we get, that I think we can easily lead ourselves to expect to hear stuff on the new album that is a direct copy of the old stuff, only with different titles.

I'm ambivalent about some of the tracks on the album, but it's the first album I've heard for a long time that I don't feel the urgent need to actually programme tracks out of! For that reason alone, I know those other tracks will grow on me, pretty soon. As far as the previous posts on "this doesn't sound like Great Big Sea anymore" and "it's not what I expected" ............... I for one would get very bored if there were no musical or lyrical development going on, plus that's not the way for a band to build their audience base and ensure their own long-term survival. The development is here, it's going in a general direction that I want to hear more of, and now I really can't wait for Great Big Sea to visit British shores again!

Teddy;

some of your friends in Canada and America wrote to tell us that due to a family crisis you couldn't make it to any of the shows we're doing right now.

Please accept our best wishes for the health of your father.

We would also like to thank-yopu for all the hard work you have done to keep the GBS flame buring in the UK. Yours is one of the more interesting unofficial sites. In fact, a review of Trun on your site by "Dr T." was the only one of hundreds we read that realized "Margarita" is an attempt to capture the groove and spirit of the Small Faces.

We hope that you will get a chance to see us at Trwobridge, but in the meantime here's a photo taken backstage at Shepard's Bush. The sigfn was supposed to say Hi Teddy, but the camera chose to ignore it.

See you in the summer, (and please never reveal this email address), your friends,

Bob, Alan & Sean

Hey! That review was MINE, Bob! Never mind, I forgive you :o) I wouldn't have noticed if Dr T hadn't been so honest as to tell me it was me not her that said that.

BTW - Rod was in the Faces... the band that grew out of the Small Faces. But I guess it was close ;o)

If you have problems with the e-mail button above, my address is teddy@ukonline.co.uk