I’ve always had a soft spot for albums that just start. No intro. Just boom. Let’s go. Lets rock. There’s no time.
That’s “The Only Life Worth Living” – the absolutely brilliant song that doesn’t so much kick off the album of the same name, but smash the door down and ransack the drinks cabinet.
There’s something else I’ve always had a soft spot for – punk rock that sounds like it’s being played by the Levellers. So, yeah, step forward Black Water County.
It is not actually your conventional “folk punk” this (although if you do love Ferocious Dog, and enjoyed Skinny Lister’s return to their roots on their last one, then there’s much to enjoy here), and “Cruel
State Of Mind” is a half-decent signpost to that. More Jimmy Eat World than anything else, it is what happens after that most convinces. The duet on “Here We Are Again” an absolute beauty of a discussion on a failing, toxic relationship, all with a flute refrain.
And that’s the tightrope this walks. For every one of the quiet, reflective ones, there’s an “Escape” which gets close to the Dropkicks and the clever use of multiple vocalists (another echo of Skinny Lister) is to the fore on “Disasters.”
More than anything, though, this is about energy. You listen to songs like the pogo-ready “Questions” and imagine they’d be brilliant live, even if the chorus betrays self-doubt: “I am more self-aware than self-assured” sings Shan, and even on “Archives”, which is a genuine sugar-rush of a thing, scrape the veneer away and you find something much more opaque.
Everywhere you look, though, there’s such a grasp of melody and tune. “Before Things Get Worse” even gets faster before it is done, and at the other end of the scale is the tender beauty of “Second Guessing”, which exists on its gorgeous piano and lush strings – as well as an incredible cameo from Hannah Greenwood of Creeper.
And if you had had “acoustic strum” on your wishlist, then “Limelight” is warm as a summer breeze –but these scamps love to keep you guessing. So by the time it’s finished it’s full of uplifting horns, “there’ll be no number one”, goes the refrain. There should be. This is brilliant.
It is also fitting that the record ends like this because there’s one name I haven’t mentioned in this review….yet and it’s been deliberate: Frank Turner. Black Water County bring the same energy, the same cleverness, and the same empathy.
And it makes “The Only Life Worth Living” a remarkable thing.
Rating 9/10
