Music / american rock n roll
Review: Nuala Honan, Gallimaufry
Firstly – apologies to Claire Northey. A conspiracy of circumstances meant I missed her support set for this gig, arriving just as Nuala Honan got going. It’s been a while since I’d seen Nuala and past versions have been very much an acoustic singer/songwriter thing – indeed, as longtime convener of the Lion’s Den sessions at the Golden Lion she has been very much at the heart of Bristol’s unplugged music scene. So it was interesting to see her strap on a Telecaster in front of what looked like a rock band, with two members of Brackish (guitarist Luke Cawthra and drummer Matt Jones) and one from Master Chaynjis (Ben Winters on bass). After the first two numbers it was apparent this really was a rock band and Nuala Honan had somehow transformed from Acoustic Lioness to Rock Goddess via Americana Sweetheart. It was impressive.
Ben Winters, Nuala Honan, Matt Jones, Luke Cawthra
What hadn’t changed, happily, was her voice which has always managed to combine expressive clarity with simmering power, able to burst out when required yet be reined in at will. There was a direct honesty to her vocals reflecting the often painful honesty of her lyrics, as for instance in the raw insecurity of Tired To The Bone or the rueful Lay Your Head, and a fearsome anger in the anti-Brexit anthem Part of Something.
is needed now More than ever
That track and the mighty Bitter Taste also demonstrated that this was not simply Nuala adding instrumentation to what could have been acoustic numbers but that she was making rock songs with the structures and sounds of electric music at their heart. Bitter Taste began as a psychedelic build up between Luke’s guitar and Matt’s drumming that eventually coalesced into the song, each verse leading to a crescendo chorus that fell back to a stripped out riff only to begin the process again. Part of Something was driven by post-punk rawness yet still, audaciously, featured moments of operatic singing over the Telecaster thrash and tumultuous drums.
Having started the gig with the revelation that her bike wheel had been stolen earlier that day and thus that she was ‘in a mood’ Nuala finished it grinning from ear to ear and definitely on a high. It was well-deserved, too, as the decent-sized crowd in the Galli shared the sentiment with her, and if anyone had had any qualms about her electrification they were clearly dispelled by the highly satisfactory results. She has picked her band well, too, leftfield players who know the rules and keep it tight to make highly convincing and properly entertaining music
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