Hailing from Devon, roots based Crazy Arm have opted to put their electric guitars down for their third album and go all acoustic on us having taken note of the reactions gained on recent tours, and with the end result being their best work yet.
Whereas the first couple of albums don’t always deliver in their attempt to fuse together a love of punk and hardcore with Billy Bragg protest songs, “The Southern Wild” sticks firmly to the latter and happily focusses on the folk influences by the likes of Woody Guthrie, CSNY and possibly more recent outfits such as Bellowhead and Midlake.
The album kicks off with the powerful female a cappella vocals on “Oh Death/Hell to Pay” making the opener the first of many traditional sounding folk songs, before leading into forthcoming single “Remembrance” – an emotional tribute to resistance fighters across Europe and the Middle East.
the end result being their best work yet
There’s a return of the a cappella vocals for “The Valley of Weeping” with the male voice taking over for what could be an Irish drinking song come sea shanty, and a stripped back “A Pocket Full of Gold” shows off the strength of the vocals and a great voice for these acoustic numbers. Crazy Arm get the banjo’s out when delving into the realms of bluegrass for “Don’t Be Cruel” and turn it up for “Roasting River” with the latter probably the closest to their earlier work, and whilst several tracks are upbeat and thigh slapping they slow the pace down during medieval instrumental “The Wild Cats of Denbury” and album closer “Black Canyon”.
Considering the bands recording sessions were slightly disjointed – having been made over the course of a weeks’ trips to the studio but spread out over almost a full year, “The Southern Wild” flows as a well-crafted piece of work and whereby taking influences from a cross section of the world of bluegrass, folk and country remains incredibly natural and true to the album Crazy Arm set out to make.
So with this acoustic masterpiece due out later in the month, it’s going to be interesting to see which direction they take next, will the electric guitars make a comeback or are Crazy Arm going to continue to appeal to a different audience with their new material? We are of course yet to find out, but either way “The Southern Wind” is going to take some beating.
