REVIEW: Oysterband, Here I Stand (Omnium)
- Chris Hill
Relentlessly uplifting, even when the lyrics take a turn for the serious, Oysterband's latest is a gust of fresh, folk roots air from England, a country where attitude and image seem to dominate the popular press attention. Raising the bar set by their last, 1997's Deep Dark Ocean, the Oysters continue their lyrical search for personal relevance in an alienating world. By album's end, the answers are found in the things they hold close to their hearts, be they ideals or loved ones.
Uncertainty amidst the hectic speed of the modern age being the predominant theme, the lyrics are rife with quotables: "The hustle, the hassle, jostle and the muscle/Squeeze it out to the last corpuscle... Everybody's gonna be a spare wheel" (in the opener, "On the Edge"); "A hard wind is blowing, it's slippy on the street/Me and my friends/we're only trying to keep our feet" (the moody "Ways of Holding On"); "Never thought we'd get this far/Now we don't know where we are/But hey... we're hanging on" (the anthemic "I Know It's Mine"). The world is a storm of chaos and confusion.
But there's an eye to the hurricane, containing music and love. "This is the Voice" praises the edifying ability of a musician to illuminate and elate: "Though the voice is wearing thin/I can hear it rise and fall/Cutting clean through the din/To turn my world around." The song is assisted by the talents of Chumbawumba. "In Your Eyes" gives a poetic illustration of a lover's gaze: "Wonder what the spark is/when you turn your eyes on me/Some kind of magic and it will not let me be/Rip! goes reality, walls are falling down/Snap! goes the iron chain/That ties me to the ground." Love is a natural force, ours to seize and hold, if we can.
Back to uncertainty. Love is also an elusive presence. "Street of Dreams," with Rowan Godel's swan-like guest vox a magnificent addition, begins as a love ballad ("Underneath a magic moon/In my dream I lay there waiting/You came naked to my room") before revealing that it's written from the point of view of a hapless man who can only idolize what he sees ("Walk right by me in the gutter/Lying here outside your door"). The lilt of the fiddle combined with Godel's voice form a singular beauty. The song leaps into the ears.
Bedding the lyrics is an impressive roster of equipment: acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, fiddles, cello, harmonica, drums, mandolin, and concertina. These instruments are spotlit in several interludes: "cello drop" (a cello arrangement of a Gustav Holst piece), the winsome toast of "a last glass," and the quiet waltz, "kantele." Not surprisingly, though, it's the protean fiddle which lynchpins the album: made devotional and plaintive on "A Time of Her Own," capricious on "Ways of Holding On," glorious and rollicking when it appears late in "This Town" and mournful with a companion cello on "Someone You Might Have Been."
Artists similar to the Oysters come easily to mind: Van Morrison, the Chieftains and the Levellers. Bolster this name-dropping with the able support of Chumbawumba and Great Big Sea, plus others, and Here I Stand proves a formidable CD.
If you find yourself inhaling this album daily, check out their website, http://www.oysterband.co.uk/, for details on an eighteen song Alive and Acoustic CD, available only at their shows and through mail order.
