Description
CD review by Terry Carlan
I was interested from the moment I saw the lime green cover of the duo Lime & Steel.
Their CD ‘Tales of Love, Murder … and Trains’ suggested a good read/listen.
Nice lot of songs about early Australia.
First track, ‘Mt Isa’, is a gentle song, involving trains, of an Englishman coming to this nation and ending up in Mt Isa, sung in Ben Scott’s clear, high voice with a lovely segueway into ‘Banshee’ on the end of it.
I do like whistle, mandolin and uillean pipes, so evocative.
Paddy Connor and Ben Scott are fine songwriters on this CD of musical stories.
‘Me and the devil and you’ has a nicely sparse opening and is intriguing and idiosyncratic about a convict, Alexander Pierce.
Very listenable, it’s written by Paddy Connor (on banjo and vox) and he does a great job and your mind gets pulled in by the staccato playing.
It has a good mix between the instruments.
He continues on with the catchy ‘Lambing Flat’ … based on the anti-chinese riots of the Gold Rush.
‘Patyegorang’, a love story between a white Lieutenant and an Eora woman is beautifully sung.
Simple yet so moody you can almost see the two people getting together within the song.
The more you listen the more you fall into these lovely folk stories of early Australia.
They are so relaxed … and they just fit together like good, old friends.
An opium den in Darwin, and stories of love and laughter, and loss and caffeine, public transport in Lithgow and a father’s love.
Ben Scott’s ‘Sleep on precious time bomb’ … is accapella magic about the wonders and mysteries of a baby’s sleeping patterns and has great harmonies.
Ben Scott, who wrote a number of the songs on this CD, and recorded and mixed it, has also released an album of original songs about the First Fleet!
Paddy Connor’s songs, to me, stand out as a little different, all of them, and that’s a good thing.
Slightly different is interesting.
Ben Scott’s ‘Juice of the bean’ is another fine, funny example of this.
A caffeinated tale of woe and addiction.
The three piece group play a wide range of instruments from guitar, mandolin, tin whistle, uillean pipes, banjo, percussion and brushes very well and they all fit in the right sonic place behind these beautifully crafted sung stories.
The lyrics, melodies and harmonies on this CD reminded me of night after a couple of Guinness’.
