Sorry for the lack of updates recently Punkbrunchers. I'd like to say that I've been plotting my trip to Gainesville for the Fest or i've been glamping backstage at the festivals now I'm a "well important star of the blogging world" (my mum, 2011). The truth is I've been in Croatia with the Admiral and our friends the Rocket and the Bastard . We spent a good couple of weeks island hopping and on the many long boat rides and coach rides into either war torn paradises (Bosnia) or Russian beach based playgrounds (Montenegro, where even I felt small compared to the amount of Balkan Beef on offer) I was able to get in touch with some music I've been meaning to give certain attention to. Can you believe that none of my travelling companions had heard of Tin Horn Prayer?! They hadn't even heard the awesome "Better Living" on the Revival Road Compilation. Safe to say after I had bored them rigid about how amazing THP are they refuse to go on holiday with me again.
When your sailing around in 35 degree sunshine with nothing to do except read Steinbeck and sweat you would probably want some easy listening right? Something in tune with your mood? why not be like everyone else and listen to Guetta? He's cool for an ageing French DJ who has to invite Akon round to his house just so a party can start right? Fuck Guetta, Fuck the sunshine, Fuck the Balkan beats, you need to get down and dirty with some straight talking punky Americana out of Denver. Who needs a "Crazy Chick" or any other Gallic House bullshit when you can listen to tracks with such happy titles as "Better Living", "Crime Scene Cleanup Team" and "1939". That's just what Tin Horn Prayer are... a great big slap round the face of heartfelt melancholia and realism, the anti Guetta if you will.
Imagine you have just eaten a huge bag containing igneous rocks of various shapes and sizes and Tom Waits and Chuck Ragan are beckoning you over for a swing round on the gravelly voice roundabout, that's what the boys sound like. Featuring such alumni of cracking Denver bands such as Love Me Destroyer and the vastly underrated The Blackout Pact you can immerse yourself in half an hour of pure beer soaked, hit around the head with a bar stool misery punk. Track 4, The Devil Makes Me, proudly exclaims that "you gotta listen to what they say, you gotta make those people pay" the standout track Wretch laments that "I can't shake this burden off of my chest, Oh Lord please save my soul .... I think about dying all day long, I can't make it through this night alone".... there is such an earnestness and intensity in the lyrics that you actually feel compelled to follow through with the bands requests in order to try and empathise and share in the cocophony of beautiful pain the album creates. In Crowbait we're treated with the pearl that "destruction isn't that simple anymore", I took that as a personal challenge and spent the following hour of my holiday trying to throw stones at the Admiral as she swam in the Adriatic.
Musically Get Busy Dying is as raw as the vocals which adds to the haggard, brow beaten effect of the album. However before you adopt Get Busy Dying as a reason to sell all your possessions in exchange for a lifelong residency in the corner of some filthy pub with a you do get treated to some beautiful harmonica work (Wretch and Louis Collins) and even a sort of modern sea shanty (a la Sharks Come Cruizin) in the album closer Wayfaring Stranger.
If you're a sucker for sing a long tunes and the odd blitz of a mouth organ then Get Busy Dying is definitely for you. With the English summertime completely over this is a perfect album to listen to in a moth eaten jacket waiting outside the pub for your mates to turn up so you can moan about how shit everything is. This isn't the album to listen to when you're on a beach holiday (as the 2 coral bracelets I had to buy the Admiral in apology for my Tin Horn Prayer-esque behaviour).
You can download the entire album from the boys Bandcamp page for free at http://tinhornprayer.bandcamp.com/album/get-busy-dying and its well worth a listen, it won't put a smile on your face but it will be a perfect companion for a whiskey and a copy of the Grapes of Wrath.
9 out of 10...
