The latest releases reviewed
BOB FRANK & JOHN MURRY World Without End Décor ****
You've heard of death metal; well, this here is death country-folk, and a more gruesome collection of songs you will not hear this or any other year. Bob Frank is a California-based, 62-year-old, late-blooming maverick roots singer-songwriter who once played with the likes of Townes Van Zandt; he has teamed up with John Murry to make a "murder ballads album", but instead of revisiting the familiar catalogue of traditional tunes, they've written 10 of their own, based on actual events, and notably shorn of any moral tone. This makes grim if compelling listening - murder, rape, pillage, nooses, knives and mayhem - from the story of Little Willy Harpe in 1805 to Bubba Rose's dark deeds in 1961. The music is suitably sepia-toned, hushed vocals cowled in a gaunt mesh of steel guitar and evocative picking. Not easy to like but impossible to ignore. www.worldwithoutend.com Joe Breen
Download tracks: Doc Cunningham, Boss Weatherford, Little Willy Harpe
RACHID TAHA The Definitive Collection Wrasse Records ***
This collection by the leading French-Algerian performer of his time both showcases the strengths and highlights the weaknesses of musical marriages where tradition meets modernity head-on. At his best Taha, as the accompanying DVD shows, is a dynamic and hugely impressive performer capable, by force of personality alone, to drive home this combination of Euro beats, North African influences and political awareness. It is a thumping, propulsive meze, low on subtlety but high on energy and passion, and when it is good, it is very good. But its repetitive electronic beat makes one yearn for the simple quirkiness and spirited inventiveness of traditional rhythms and sounds. They are here, but have to fight with the crash chords and declamatory vocals to get a voice. All Taha's main songs are featured, including his ironic version of The Clash's Rock el Casbah. http://rachidtaha.artistes. universalmusic.fr Joe Breen
Download tracks: Bent Sahra, Habina
CHRISTY MOORE The Spirit of Freedom Warner Music **
With all this entente cordiale in the air, there's a certain unreality about this 1985 rerelease. Christy's probably our most credible protest singer, but The Spirit of Freedom ploughs a narrow furrow through our sordid political history. Aside from Woody Guthrie's perennially relevant Deportee, it's as if the needle's stuck in the groove. Whatever emotional punch Bobby Sands's Back Home in Derry might have had is muffled by the sound of detente. Moore's relentless namechecking of the patriot dead would surely have raised hackles and spirits in equal measure two decades ago but, with peace breaking out, we're left with their musical weaknesses and not much else. Add to that the kind of sound distortion that's an inheritance from its analogue roots, and The Spirit of Freedom has more shackles than wings. www.christymoore.com Siobhan Long
Download track: Deportee
