Paramour by Band Of Holy Joy
Radio Joy CD02
Paramour is a flaming comet, devastating and mature, confident and proud. This is what happens when you live to feel the power of life and that you have no choice but contain that force through the structures of a song. Paramour clocks in at just over 30 minutes – nothing extraneous, not a word, note or texture wasted, the very definition of poetry. This is a song-cycle with a loose narrative thread- a piece of sonic cinema with beginning, middle and end: life, love, loss, redemption, no redemption. Band of Holy Joy on this outing sound like the crew of the Flying Dutchman after being permanently marooned in a lost New York.
[Jonny Mugwump, The Quietus, July 2010]
Reviews
"The shadow of William Burroughs looms large."
Gerry Ranson, R2 Rock’n'Real
"Holy Joy can shift from heartbreak to violence in the blink of an eye."
Jonny Mugwump, The Quietus http://thequietus.com/articles/04661-band-of-holy-joy-paramour-review
"Folk macabre meets William Burroughs/Lou Reed-like sagas of lust, desire and obsession."
Gavin Martin, Uncut
"The songs inhabit a demi-monde where its always five in the morning, the drink & drugs have long run out, a time where emotions are fragile & intensified, and the sun’s just starting to shine thru tattered grimy curtains."
Den Browne, Mudkiss Fanzine http://www.mudkiss.com/denmay10.htm
"Alive with lust, torment and obsession."
Daily Mirror
Tracklist
| 1. | We Were The Best Of Friends | 6:52 |
| 2. | Memory Counts | 3:37 |
| 3. | Troubled Sleep | 3:44 |
| 4. | I Propose | 3:16 |
| 5. | Roadwork | 3:46 |
| 6. | I Dreamed That The City Was On Fire | 3:51 |
| 7. | And Yea' I Made It Through The Night | 4:20 |
| 8. | There Is A Bluebird On Your Shoulder | 3:42 |
Credits
Andy Astle - guitar
Chris Brierley - violin
Johny Brown - vocal
Paul O'Donnell - bass
Artwork and design by Inga Tillere.
License
All rights reserved.
Band Of Holy Joy have mutated endlessly since their origin as a kind of trashbin industrial folk collective, through early experiments in an intensely poetic form of ambient postpunk, to near chart-contenders on a then-failing Rough Trade, free of bitterness but with greater heart… and more recently onward to a series of albums of gently anthemic social culture and political critique.