Album title:
The Dirty Canyon
Artist:
Marseille Figs
Label:
FOL1
Marseille Figs make music like the 20th century didn't happen. This is Wild West saloon, honky-tonk, Cajun, spit 'n' sawdust, frontier-town, barnstorming rabble-rousing – more authentic than Rednex's Cotton Eyed Joe maybe, but not by much. The trio, led by Californian, London-based J Maizlish, cause all kinds of discordant noises with ukuleles, mouth harps, screaming sax and Maizlish's own gee-shucks, yodel-shaped singing. And they just about get away with it on songs that take a lead from less dusty sources, such as the Nick Cave badass growl of Caeser's Revenge or the Stooges-like organ riff of Skin & Bones. To their credit, they possess talent, style, stories and humour in abundance. It's just hard to imagine the scenario of listening to the album casually, because when ye olde sound doesn't work, it really doesn't. If only they'd been born in the 1860s. [Nick Mitchell]