I’ll admit something, dear reader. There’s nothing I dislike more than when a band says to me (as they often do), “You must come and say hi.” It’s about the most uncomfortable thing I can possibly do. Small talk. The only thing we have in common being the album I’ve reviewed. If there’s a hell, that’s it.
Until, that is, the 22nd of October 2022. When I turned into a gushing fanboy, telling someone how incredible their album was. And it was a conversation I’d instigated.
That was because Dom Martin’s “A Savage Life” record had an effect on me that few do, and I’d just seen him live for the first time.
I’d suspected for a long while that Dom would be even better live, and watching him that night was all the proof I needed. Partly acoustic, partly plugged in, but always brilliant, there’s something of a synergy with “Buried Alive.”
Things have moved on, the band has changed, the “Buried In The Hail” album has arrived, but the incredible skill, authenticity, and passion with which these songs are delivered are evident.
Beginning with “Daylight I Will Find”—the first fully-fledged song on “…Hail”—and moving straight into “Government” is a masterstroke, because the latter is almost perfect Martin. Not quite blues, not quite anything else, it is gentle, but if you strip it away, it reveals pain.
There’s an almost desperate quality to Martin, as if he doesn’t so much write these songs as rip them from deep inside. “Buried In The Hail” itself is gut-wrenching, while one of the most overt blues things on this is probably “Howlin’,” which is delivered with glee.
Watching Martin live—as opposed to listening to this—is where you get a sense of his intensity. Some of the stories he tells, his life experiences, are incredible, and you hear them in your head as “Belfast Blues” plays.
He’s one of the best guitar players around, too. And “Unhinged” will leave you in no doubt about that, while if you fancy the whole gunslinger-as-guitarist thing, then “Lefty 2 Guns” is a beauty.
The solo at the start of “12 Gauge” is glorious—and Martin’s voice deserves more credit than arguably it gets.
A song from his debut album, “Dixie Black Hand,” provides a focal point as ever, and it also concludes the “electric” portion of the program.
You see, rather like that other Belfast bluesman (the greatest of them all, the name escapes me…)* Martin adapts his songs incredibly for the acoustic guitar. Here “Easy Way Out” melds with “Belfast Blues” in the most sensational way imaginable, and the summery strains of “Hello In There” (which opens “…Hail”) does likewise with “The Fall.” It is quite extraordinary to hear such genius (word used deliberately) at work.
The wonderful Demi Marriner makes an appearance on “Daylight I Will Find” here, and her harmonies are as gorgeous as ever, and the mash-up of “Here Comes The River” and “12 Gauge” works so well.
The plaintive, almost widescreen feel of “Dog Eat Dog” makes that one shine like a diamond, and it’s interesting to hear him play this early material with his greater experience.
He allows himself the luxury of building “Hell For You” and “Mercy” into a proper epic. Stretching over 10 minutes, it’s a real journey, and there’s another return to the debut for “Dealer,” where the words, repeated in the hook, “found nothing inside,” are at odds with the emotional pull the music clearly has.
And that’s the thing you can’t get past with Dom Martin. I’d venture to suggest he doesn’t “have” to play live, he “needs” to. And that’s a key difference.
“Buried Alive” is a wonderful document of that. Live albums will never substitute for “being there,” but this is brilliant and thus comes closer than most.
Rating 9.5/10
*I know who Rory Gallagher is; I just wanted to avoid the lazy cliché of likening Dom to Rory for once.
REVIEW: DOM MARTIN – BURIED ALIVE (2024)
Published:
