Review - Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg
Tooth and Nail

Lately, it seems as though all the old masters are running dry. Bob Dylan hasn't made a good album in nearly 16 years, Bruce Springsteen's last couple of records have ranged from underwhelming to shite, and the less said about Morrissey the better. I've seen a worrying downslide in Billy Bragg's work too - Mr Love and Justice was awful, and while Fight Songs had some good tracks on it, it didn't sound like the work of one of England's best living songwriters. So I was feeling apprehensive about this new release - the papers were praising it to the skies, but as we've seen from the reviews of Dylan's last shiteheap, you can't rely on mainstream hacks anymore.

The good news is, Tooth and Nail isn't a total disappointment. Musically, it's pretty damn good, and clearly bears the influence of Bragg's excellent work with Wilco on the Mermaid Avenue albums. It's a long way from the standard Billy Bragg sound - much more restrained, bluesy, but (and I mean this in a good way) without the testosterone associated with the blues. This is a ramshackle sound, less Howlin' Wolf, more Beck circa One Foot In The Grave. There's a calculatedly folksy back-porch vibe to this album, and even Bragg's voice has a transatlantic twang to it.

The problem, though, is that - like on Don;t Try This At Home - this instrumental sophistication often seems like it's there to mask substandard lyrics, something that it does not do very well. It's telling that the two best songs on here are a Woody Guthrie cover (a satisfyingly world-weary version of Ain't Got No Home) and a cowrite (Over You, which has some nice, jazzy chord progressions and a kind of Ryan Adams-meets-Asylum-era Tom Waits vibe). There are some good songs on here - Goodbye, Goodbye is a touching mortality song (which is a little worrying - chin up Billy, you're only 50) - but, sadly, not enough. Most of the album is ok, the only outright bad song on there is There Will Be A Reckoning, but that's the problem - it's ok. Not great, not even good, this album comes steeped in the kind of mediocre songwriting I'd expect from an open-mic night. It saddens me to write this, as I'm a huge Billy Bragg fan and he seemed like a really nice bloke when I met him, but I cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone buy this record.

Rating: 4/10