Perhaps there’s something about working in the travelling entertainment industry that makes you an outsider. The Morris brothers would probably attest to that. Since reforming and releasing their first new music in 30 years, Balaam And The Angel have added The Almighty to the list of bands they’ve opened for – a list that already includes Kiss and The Cult.
Which is another way of saying this: these lads have history. They have scars. They have never quite fitted anywhere, and that, frankly, has always been their strength.
That is the sound of “Love Death Wealth Water”, too. Four songs, 14 minutes, and absolutely no interest in smoothing the edges.
Production saw the band return to Oxygene Studios in Manchester with Christoph Bride, who has recently worked on albums by The Chameleons and Kirk Brandon/Theatre Of Hate/Spear Of Destiny. The idea, apparently, was to blend the ambience of the band’s darker past with the punchier edge of their later albums, while pushing into newer approaches to songwriting and recording.
That sounds like press-release speak, maybe, but it is exactly what happens.
“Wealth” opens with the line “poverty is just a state of mind”, which is both brilliant and surely the Tory dream. There is menace here, and when the chorus arrives, there is aggression too. It doesn’t explode so much as bare its teeth.
“Fear Of Poison Water” carries a kind of post-punk unease. It is a little unsettling, but scrape away the layers and there is something heavy and dark underneath it. And these days, of course, that fear feels very real indeed.
“You Are Dead To Me” slows things down, but it doesn’t soften anything. It is more ballad-like, maybe, but the patience is thinning, the landscape is barren, and there is no love here. There is, though, perhaps a hint of Stuart Adamson’s dark poetry in the way it reaches for something bleak but oddly beautiful.
Then “Love Me Too” asks the real question. Do they really want love, or do outsiders simply need affection? “What the hell is going on?” asks Morris, and you sense that the answer, if there is one, is still somewhere out there on the road.
There are those who never seem to fit in. Balaam And The Angel sound like they stopped trying years ago, and “Love Death Wealth Water” is better for it.
RATING 8/10
