| Album | Reassembled |
| Artist | Bellowhead |
| Released | 18 June 2021 |
| Highlights | Parson’s Farewell, Little Sally Racket, New York Girls, Frogs’ Legs and Dragon’s Teeth |
| Lowlights | Cold Blows the Wind, Captain Wedderburn |
| Undertone rating | 4/5 |
A final reunion concert back in December was the stuff of every Bellowhead fan’s dreams. Six months later the performance has been immortalised in a widely-released live album that often finds the 11-strong folk band at their exuberant best.
It was one of my favourite primary school teachers who first introduced me to English folk collective Bellowhead. He used to play their song Cross-eyed and Chinless in class, and I spent a while learning the different parts on piano and practicing writing my own songs in the relatively unusual canon form that the song demonstrated so brilliantly. I’ll admit, the main appeal was that the song was called Cross-eyed and Chinless, but something in the jaunty bounce of the fiddle and that bizarrely middle eastern saxophone interlude made me excitable and eager to get up and move.
A few years later I was a little too shy to venture off my seat and over to the aisles as Jon Boden encouraged concert-goers to gallop up and down Harrogate’s Royal Hall towards the end of their live set. It had been an incredibly energetic performance, with seated cellist Rachel McShane seemingly the only band-member not sweating buckets as big closer New York Girls was taken at full pelt. The live storytelling, sense of community and, most of all, the unrestrained sense of fun was what I grew to love most about folk as a genre that night, even if I came home stinking of red wine from the woman who’d had one too many in the private box above me.
The songs simmer with jaunty fiddles, a swelling melodeon and wandering piccolo melodies… Pete Flood’s toms bubble like a boiling cauldron
Sadly, at the peak of my Bellowhead obsession in 2015 the band announced they were to split, with Boden deciding he’d achieved everything he’d wanted to with his folk arrangements. A grand two-part farewell tour was undertaken with a long accompanying live album, and Bellowhead’s hits from their great albums Hedonism and Broadside were left to age and gradually fade from memory. That was until, of course, my parents spotted a newspaper advert. One last reunion was to be available for viewing via a paid online streaming service. The 11-strong folk collective would be brought briefly away from their own diverging solo careers for a final final farewell. Bellowhead, like The Avengers, were to Assemble once more.
So there I was, sitting in the living room with my equally Bellowhead-adoring mum watching Boden and co blast through old favourites, tapping our feet with more enthusiasm every song until we were eventually dancing around the coffee table. Ultimately, that’s the effect Reassembled has: it’s an energising album, remarkable given the state of the pandemic at the time (one original Bellowhead trumpeter even had to miss out on the gig due to Covid travel restrictions). It was amidst the growing dark of another soulless December evening that openers Roll Alabama and 10,000 Miles Away sparked into life, simmering with jaunty fiddles, a swelling melodeon and wandering piccolo melodies. The latter of the two provided one of the most exciting performances of the night, with Pete Flood’s toms bubbling away like a boiling cauldron in a typically unforgettable chorus.
Boden’s passion for traditional music is clear in his giddy demeanor; long after his fruitless efforts at audience participation have been ditched he continues to bounce across the stage
Of course, few songs on Reassembled were actually written by Bellowhead. Roll Alabama follows the successes and eventual demise of Britain’s CSS Alabama in fighting the Union during the American Civil War, while 10,000 Miles Away dates back to 1778, when one wrong step in the eyes of the law could see you deported all the way to Australia. It’s easy to forget the extraordinary age and history of the tracks that populate the album, and yet it would still be wrong to dismiss Bellowhead – or any contemporary folk band – as mere reproducers of songs that have been sung for centuries. Many of Boden’s arrangements of the classics are in fact quite extraordinary. Fairly simplistic 17th century dance tune Parson’s Farewell, for example, is completely reinvented with rapid changes in texture that keep finding new ways to extract every last ounce of fun from that sprightly fiddle melody. The real mastery comes when the piece transforms into a stunningly intricate fugue, rising then falling in dynamic before one last unison blast of the tune at full volume. It’s about as close as music gets to pure joy.
Boden is an entertaining frontman throughout, attempting to find absurdity in the grim state of the pandemic by pressing a wireless up to the microphone between songs in a desperate effort to replicate audience applause with radio static. His deep knowledge and passion for traditional music is clear in his giddy demeanor; long after his fruitless efforts at audience participation have been ditched he continues to bounce across the stage, often turning to mandolin-wielding sidekick Benji Kirkpatrick for that extra boost. That said, Boden’s vocals have never been Bellowhead’s strongest facet, and slower tunes like Cold Blows the Wind and Captain Wedderburn expose him at his most off-puttingly wobbly. His earthy baritone voice suits long, growly drinking songs like the brilliantly disturbing Amsterdam, which I was disappointed to see didn’t make it into the final set list for Reassembled.
Nonetheless, it is Boden who lights up the standout of the entire collection, Little Sally Racket. He seems right at home yelling away on this experimental folk-punk belter of a sea shanty that sounds completely unlike any other Bellowhead song in their discography. The entire band offers powerful supporting vocals with the sinister chant of “Haul her away!” before segueing into an equally menacing instrumental section of crunching harmonies and a piercing guitar lead. At the heart of the song is an exquisite group a cappella section. The various singing capabilities of the musicians (and the differing proximity of the microphones) only adds to the sense of horror-film foreboding. And then, to top it all off, a manic blast of oboe and trumpet deliver a knockout blow, with Flood giving the cymbals and snare everything he’s got. It’s a wonderfully chaotic and spectacular musical experience that only leaves me wondering why Boden didn’t do much more experimentation in his time as the frontman.
The set list is not without its duller passages. Previously unreleased The March Past lands a little flat and forgettable, and tunes like Haul Away and Rosemary Lane seem like unfavourable selections over the plentiful pickings from the band’s golden years in the early 2010s. It eventually becomes clear, however, that Bellowhead knows how to deliver a concert finale – and, of course, a career finale. At last, the big hitters make their appearance. Anthemic Roll the Woodpile Down was once one of my all-time favourite songs (yes, alongside Since U Been Gone), whilst potent earworm London Town is one of the most danceable tunes of the bunch. New York Girls is the song that saw the band’s third album Hedonism become the most successful independent folk album in history, and it’s a joy in its rightful place towards the back end of the running order. By the time the confetti cannons ignite on the barnstorming closer Frogs’ Legs & Dragon’s Teeth, you’ll be beaming from ear to ear. For one last time, the band conjure up a glorious cacophony from their encyclopedia of instruments, with enough ecstatic dancing to make you forget about the pandemic or indeed the sad fact that this is the last time this band will ever perform together. Get it on repeat, drink it in. The tale of one of England’s finest folk bands is over.
Undertone 
Leave a comment