Product Description

Burlesque includes 13 songs and tunes inspired by a dazzling array of material - from the Napoleonic Wars ("Rigs Of The Time"), the American minstrel movement ("Jordan"), sea-shanties from Brazil ("Across The Line"), and the spirit of the East Anglian step-dance tradition ("Sloe Gin"). The band have long since transcended the idea of simply being a folk band with some brass players, and have honed their own unique style which sets them apart. Despite being deeply rooted in the English folk dance tradition, they also merge a joyous, uplifting cacophony of sound with a slightly sinister, distorted collision of music hall, Lotte Lenya, Robert Wyatt and pure theatre.

"Having taken the festival scene by the scruff of its neck over the past couple of years, Bellowhead, now a modest 11 piece, at last deliver a startling debut album amid a blaze of brass, outlandish showmanship and cracking songs and tunes. They take outrageous but enthralling liberties with some of folk's hardy veterans, turning Rigs of the Time into a knockabout show tune, Flash Company into an unruly homage to Tom Waits, and Death and the Lady into a Victorian melodrama. But from the rampaging vocals of Jon Boden to Gideon Juckes' growling, slightly scary sousaphone, they sweep all before them into a heady mix of great tunes, innovative arrangements, rampant imagination and brazen front. Several leaps on the form the min-album EP Onymous, it gobbles up fresh territory without a backwards glance. Extraordinary" - Mojo ****

Track Listing

1. Rigs Of The Time
2. Jordan
3. Across The Line
4. London Town
5. Sloe Gin
6. Courting Too Slow
7. Flash Company
8. Hopkinson's Favourite
9. One May Morning Early
10. Outlandish Knight
11. Frog's Legs And Dragon's Teeth
12. Fire Marengo

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #409 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Communication breakdown ?
I was really looking forward to hearing the first Bellowhead album in its entirety. A great live band who had built up a cult following and brought on board critics such as Mr Folk, Mike Harding and the music critics from the 'serious' newspapers.
Bellowhead could be seen as an English Pogues. Quirky and left field. Offering their own unique interpretations of traditional songs through their all singing all dancing 11 piece instrumental line up.
Mixing everything from folk,to rag time,vaudeville,trad jazz and roots, the Bellowhead sound is certainly unique.
Unfortunately for me,their strength is in their live performances. Burlesque is quite a way off mark in that it lacks any outstanding tracks and loses so much in its over complicated over cooked format.
With the band throwing every style and instrument known to man into the mix it soon starts to induce musical intergestion.
I would not take too much notice of the fawning fan reviews which give it five stars....FIVE STARS !!!
This aint no English 'If I should fall from grace with God'.

Brilliant, melodic, genre-defying LP
It's very rare indeed that a band emerges as different and talented as Bellowhead. The 11 piece big-band collective play contemporary, innovative versions of traditional folk songs, which, despite the band's size, have excellent, uncluttered arrangements.

Bellowhead is the brainchild of singer / fiddler Jon Boden and melodeon playing John Spiers, both well-known faces on the English folk circuit. One or other of the Jo(h)ns arranged most of the songs on Burlesque or wrote an original melody or reel with the exception of Across The Line and London Town which were arranged by Pete Flood and Paul Sartin respectively, Both highlights, London Town has an almost ska-like feel courtesy of Bellowhead's superb four-piece brass section who are more like the Dirty Dozen Band than the standard soul or jazz influenced horn ensemble.

Yes the brass section are crucial to Bellowhead's sound. They also particularly shine on the clipped, almost calypso-like instrumental Sloe Gin as well as providing further sympathetic, funky emblishments throughout the LP. Despite their presence though, Bellowhead are essentially a folk group with extensive notes on the derivation of each song provided in the inlay, presumably by Boden and Spiers. If these two have ever had enough of music, they would make excellent archivists...

The Bellowhead sound is so different that it's hard to describe the band in terms of musical influences though the closest match is possibly The Pogues at their most sophisticated around the time of If I Should Fall From Grace With God. This only of course tells half the story at most. For further non-folk pointers, the superb Across The Line and Courting Too Slow would not be out of place on The Waterboys' Fisherman's Blues whilst the discordant, vaudeville Flash Company peters towards Tom Waits' territory.

Don't just think of influences too much when playing Burlesque though but just enjoy it for the incredible body of work that it is. It's far too rich to be pigeonholed as just folk music with Bellowhead having huge potential cross-over appeal if they want it though I suspect, as mostly family men nearer 30 than 20, they are happy enough to be a big cult act. Whatever their intentions, Burlesque is a magnificent, melodic, extremely original album and is very highly recommended.

Big and brassy
Crazy, over the top, loads of oompah, fun, masterful, magical. You'll end up listening to this over and over again and loving it more and more each time. In the future this will be seen as a defining moment in folk music history. All power to Jon Boden and his compatriots.