The Vagaband - Something Wicked This Way Comes
Playing guitars, pedal-steel, brass, woodwind, strings, piano, drums and bass, Norfolk nine-piece roots rockers The Vagaband take country, folk, Celtic, jazz, blues, show tunes, classic rock and more to create a sound comfortably familiar yet uniquely their own. As cracking as they are live, as good as their previous LPs are, this third album is a surprise in its brilliance.
The title track and Bright Are The Stars hint at Midlake’s Van Occupanther and Drive-By Truckers. One For The Road has the feel of Skynyrd jamming with Muswell Hillbillies Kinks. There’ll Only Be One Elvis references Costello rather than Presley but swaggers like Exile-era Stones. There’s an Appalachian stomp to Not My Day To Die and a touch of Steve Earle to Black Eyed Sally. Through The Back Doors channels Lennon and Cohen and Spiritual Man is NOLA Vaudeville. It is nigh on impossible to pick standouts but it is the two epics - An Eye For An Eye (featuring Morganway’s Yve Mary Barwood) and Zoetrope - that I’d go for.
The PR blurb describes this as “Americana meets The White Album”. I dunno about that but, if there is any justice, in years to come, this will be seen as The Vagaband’s breakthrough masterpiece.
9.5/10
