I watched Tom Jenkins a couple of times playing support sets, and on one occasion his fellow Welshmen Cardinal Black joked that they’d ask him to play more if they could, but it was “shearing season.”
Jenkins has one of the more interesting backstories you’ll find. Not many people I review spend part of the year in New Zealand shearing sheep, but he does.
“When The Coal Dust Settled,” though, concerns itself with matters closer to home in South Wales.
The valleys have been scarred by deindustrialisation and the neglect of successive governments, and these songs chronicle that wonderfully.
From the gripping intro — which likens miners to slaves and begins the album in Welsh, “Wrth I’r Llwch Glo Setlo” (translated as “as the coal dust settles” according to Google Translate) — this is little short of exceptional.
Never mind the lyrics of “In The Valley,” which deal with “generations with their backs to their wall,” it’s the sound of the track that astounds. Soaring and even anthemic, it celebrates these communities with its harmonies.
Jenkins singing in his accent only adds to the authenticity of tracks like “Old Rhondda” and its almost perfect folk music.
The title track feels the weight of family very strongly: the grandfather who died with blackened lungs, the father who told him to “push a pen not a shovel,” and it does them both justice.
Every song here is a highlight, and frankly, I’ve listened to it plenty of times — and had a different favourite on as many occasions. As it is, “Built These Towns On The Crumbs Of A Breadline” is the one for now. Dealing with the scars left on the town by capitalism after the mines were closed, it is both vitriolic and full of empathy.
The writing recalls Martyn Joseph, and so does the harmonica; it works perfectly on “Forever Blue (Llantwit Major RFC).”
“Stay And Work The Land” remains rooted in the valleys and does so with vigour, while “Glyndwr Griffiths” takes the minutiae and tells the tale of Jenkins’ maternal grandfather who “gave my life to that coal.”
You can’t escape the Springsteen comparisons on “Sardis Road,” the home of Pontypridd RFC — a sport I know nothing about — but as someone currently worried about relegation for his football team, it’s brilliantly done.
“A Valleys Charm And A Dead Horse” adds a bit of fun — snogging the landlord’s wife, anyone? — and an uplifting quality, and its fade-out is surely made for playing live.
Sharon Osbourne is wrong on nearly everything, and she was again this week when she called for Irish rappers Kneecap to be banned for being too political, claiming that music was meant to entertain.
That might be fair enough for some, but in singer-songwriter circles — from Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Frank Turner, through to everyone we’ve spoken about in this review — the best inform, and Tom Jenkins does that here too.
“History can’t be left behind, only carried,” he sings at one point, and that might never be truer; but it can be crafted into something sensational too — and this might very well be the best album of its type in 2025.
Rating: 10/10
REVIEW: TOM JENKINS – WHEN THE COAL DUST SETTLED (2025)
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