Every year you discover something unexpected on your listening journey that turns out to be golden, and this year my find of the year was arguably by little known South African band ‘Black Cat Bones.’ If you are not familiar with the band then they essentially started out as a Blue-based Rock band but with this year’s ‘Book of Miriam’ they have produced an album that is so much more.
If you love variety and a bit of loud guitar and a dab of horns with your Blues and Soul then this might just be your find of the year too. Initially I was intrigued by their cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’ – I mean any band that covers Dylan has to get it right don’t they? And ‘Black Cat Bones’ get it spot on – delivering the raw emotion against a wonderfully sparse backing that swells as the emotion does. It does what every good cover should do – taking a familiar staple and adding to it whilst maintaining the respect for the original.
We start out though with ‘Lungs’ a short sharp three minutes that starts with fuzzy guitar and drums and an almost vintage Talking Heads inspired vocal. It’s got an insatiable funky groove and just acts to set up the possibilities that soon come flooding through. ‘When I See You’ that follows is an entirely different beat, slow and low, with horns punctuating the groove it’s bight and light and the understated background vocals just raise it to another level. It’s a wonderful mix of styles that has soul, rhythm and blues and is just wonderfully uplifting.
One of my favourites on this wonderful record is the understated tale that is ‘Hemmingway’ – a great piece of writing that is simple and understated, a light and yearning ballad that grows in stature with each listen. The single, a cover of Miriam Makeba’s ‘Quit It’ is wonderfully smooth Soul that touches on addiction and features some wonderful horns. And those two tracks along with the Dylan cover make a wonderful run of songs that take us to the half way point – ‘Dearly Beloved’.
‘Dearly Beloved’ is one of those songs that you swear you’d heard before, it has an almost Drive By Truckers vibe with all the edged smoothed and has a refrain that twists beautifully around the words, it’s a real firm favourite amongst some wonderfully rich competition. The second half of the album has the seemingly impossible task of following that!
‘Robben Island’ starts the charge with a simple picked acoustic guitar line (Robben Island was the place where Nelson Mandella spent the majority of his 27 years of imprisonment) and the song bubbles along on an almost spoken word prison dirge of a verse and smooth refrain. It’s the shortest song here and goes out on bubbling keys. ‘Dave’s Song’ that follows is a wonderful lilting Bluesy Soulful stew, and ‘The Waltz’ adds more of that eminently danceable groove to the pot (my current favourite) before ‘Swords For the Pen’ adds a nice shot of what almost borders on alternative Folky Rock. That just leaves ‘Mayo’ and unhinged joyride through covid stricken South Africa that is part Tom Waits, part Dr John and 100% fun.
Sometimes the unexpected opens your eyes. This might just be the best record of the year!
9/10
TRACKLIST
- Lungs (03:00)
- When I See You (03:49)
- Hemmingway (03:42)
- Quit It (04:29)
- I Shall Be Released (04:36)
- Dearly Beloved (04:12)
- Robben Island (02:37)
- Dave’s Song (04:13)
- The Waltz (03:24)
- Swords (03:33)
- Mayo (02:38)