(2018) Trembling Bells - Dungeness

Review: 
Trembling Bells have never been concerned with keeping with the times. Instead of angsty modern themes, they deal with gigantic archetypal forms like love and death, their clattering folk rock writ large in primary colours of bold, crashing chord progressions and songs studded with references to mainstream poets like Dylan Thomas. They’re anachronistic, but not in a shallow way. Far from the psychedelic folk revivalists they’re often portrayed as, they’re much more redolent of a classicist impulse informed by lead songwriter Alex Neilson’s love for Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, which has in the past made for some potently emotive, sky-punchingly romantic music. Their last album, 2015’s The Sovereign Self made gestures toward more conventionally progadelic moves and scaled back on the impassioned folk tonalities, and that approach still holds some sway over Dungeness. However, while they perhaps aren’t producing skyscraping bangers in the vein of ‘Goathland’ and ‘Willows of Carbeth’ at the rate they once were, this album claws back much of the wonkiness that initially made them so unique. 
One aspect of this wonkiness is the sonics – Trembling Bells make some stylistic turns here that most fans wouldn’t have predicted. ‘Death Knocked At My Door’ is discordant freakbeat, with angular, chopping guitar that makes one think of Beefheart or even The Ex, topped off with a bizarre samba breakdown. Then there’s ‘The Prophet’, the band’s first, and rather successful, foray into caveman stoner doom, along with the circular riffs of ‘Devil In Dungeness’, which might as well have been cribbed from Middle Eastern-styled rock group The Devil’s Anvil, as well as the rhythmically eccentric ‘This Is How The World Will End’ which careers off into a serene country-and-western bridge. The band have often been compared to Fairport Convention – a limited appraisal given their more Celtic-sounding cadences and chaotic rhythms, which are miles away from Fairport’s taught agrarian funk – but on the fiddle-led hoedown closing ‘Christ’s Entry Into Govan’, those critics might finally have found some justification. 

Tracklist: 
01 - Big Nothing.flac 
02 - Knockin' On the Coffin.flac 
03 - My Father Was a Collapsing Star.flac 
04 - Death Knocked at My Door.flac 
05 - Christ's Entry Into Govan.flac 
06 - The Prophet.flac 
07 - Devil in Dungeness.flac 
08 - This Is How the World Will End.flac 
09 - I'm Coming.flac 
10 - Rebecca, Dressed As a Waterfall.flac 

Summary: 
Country: Scotland 
Genre: folk-rock, indie-folk