Celtophilia

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Band: Boiled in Lead
CD: Silver

Bonnie raves: First off, this band’s ardent fans refer to themselves as Leadheads, how cool is that? That was a rhetorical question, if you ask me, it’s pretty darn cool. And also clever. The band is Boiled in Lead and the c.d. is called Silver. If I wanted to nitpick I would say that at times this album leans more towards heavily inspired by Celtic music than flat out Celtic fare, but nits are small and fast, and I am lazy, so there will be no picking here. However, expect to hear rock, punk rock, and folk (and something that sounds almost Hindi?) all mixed in with threads of trad Celtic music. Or better yet, don’t expect anything at all, listen with an open mind, and let Boiled in Lead do the talking. Singing. Playing. All of the above.

I didn’t get fully into the spirit of Silver until the third track, Jolly Tinker. Oh, but then they had me. I do go crazy for ribald double entendre and awesome drumming, not to mention both at the same time!

I don’t claim to fully understand the lyrics of Silver Carp, but from now on I think I’m going to be a little afraid of them. (I always thought they were fairly harmless fishes before.) Every time I hear the word carp in the future I’m going to have the music from Jaws running through my head.

Boiled in Lead’s instrumental numbers are so good that you almost don’t miss the vocals - until the next track, when you remember all over how delightful they are. Come In From The Rain has exciting fiddling and pounding, fast as lightning, drums that come together to create something wild and fey. This is my favorite track and I never tire of listening to it.

Death On Hennepin creeped me right out, but I think that it was supposed to, so I’m putting that one down as a win.

If you’re in the mood for full tilt Celtic music, this might not be your first choice. But, if your roommate or significant other has been known to beg you on occasion “Oh please, not that Renn Faire stuff again!” Silver could be the perfect compromise.

Mike Rambles: Some things you can count on when a band has been cranking out Celtic Folk/Rock for better than two decades. Solid musicians? Check. Excellent production? Check. Great songwriting? Of course. One thing you might not expect is a vast array of musical styles. I’m pleased to tell you that Silver is not lacking in that regard, either.

For this release, Boiled in Lead has put together just about everything you could possibly dream up, then went out of their way to put in some stuff you couldn’t have dreamed of. There’s some traditional stuff, reels given a bit of a modern twist,, some Country fiddle influences, and a few things that just defy definition. I submit into evidence that track 4 is a kick ass country/rock song about… well…. Carp. You know, carp? Big freshwater fish? Interesting, to say the least.

Death on Hennepin is easily my favorite song on this CD. It features an absolutely haunting mix of acoustic rhythym guitar, fiddle, and an electric guitar throwing in background notes that make the whole thing sound like it would be part of an awesome soundtrack for a modern Western movie. To top it off, it’s about Death (capital D) going out picking up chicks in his Lincoln. I guess the pale horse just doesn’t draw ‘em in like it used to.

There are quite a lot of instrumentals on Silver, and each one is very different. The Sunset is a solid rock song, Come In From The Rain and Corner House are cool modern treatments of traditional reels, Menfi has a sort of Middle Eastern or Near-East Gypsy feel, and Berber, the last track on the disc, is from some other planet.

I’ll admit, I really didn’t care for Berber as the closing track, because it was so different that it seemed to bring everything to a strange close. That’s the only critical thing I can really say about Silver. I enjoyed everything else about it, and several tracks are pure brilliance.

Edit: Thanks to Drew of Boiled in Lead for pointing out that Berber is NOT the last track on the disc, thereby making my fairly weak critique weaker still. Apparently, when I imported everything to iTunes it got scrambled up somehow, and I didn’t notice. Sorry guys.

Now, go find out more about Boiled in Lead at www.boiledinlead.com

Another Edit: Also, big thanks to Drew for hooking us up with this cool little widget to play some music for you all on the site.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Celtic Rock Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.