Weekly > Reviews
Joe Gideon & The Shark - Harum Scarum
I’m not quite sure how or why, but when I was looking through the various end of year tips for who to watch out for in 2009, very few if any seemed to feature Joe Gideon & The Shark. Listening to their single earlier this year though it was clear that they were definitely on to something and a recent live review from a contributor of ours suggested that they had the goods to back it up live as well.
The live gig was supporting Seasick Steve in a two and a half thousand capacity venue, not an easy task of course, especially for a band that at the time didn’t even have their debut album out. Having passed that test though, it really needed them to deliver on the debut album and thats exactly what they have done.
Harum Scarum isn’t an album that is going to sell three million copies in the UK, it’s not that kind of record, it doesn’t pander to the masses, yet it has a real sense of cool about it. It’s clear that the duo and the record label knew that it would find it’s home with people who appreciate having to scratch under the surface to find the best stuff, the album itself is similar.
I say that because on first listen it’s not an easy album to crack, a couple of the tracks are over six minutes long, it’s quite psychedelic when the tracks start sprawling with guitar and Gideons vocals are nearer to a spoken word at times, but the longer you stay with it the more reward you’ll get from it. I’ve played it twice today and both times i’ve found new elements to the songs that i’d missed on previous listens.
The album gets right into it’s stride straight away with the title track, the second half of which is a bluesy track that has the guitar going into overdrive. They follow that with the darker Civilization, an epic sounding track about the coming of age. The single DOL follows that and it’s at this point that you realise it’s not the best track on the album, it still sounds great but they’ve shown on the first two tracks that they are capable of so much.
- Joe Gideon & The Shark
- Harum Scarum (2009)
- Category: Album
- Label: Bronzerat Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 09 Mar 2009
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
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Add to favouritesKathy Ray starts off coming down in pace before it builds throughout the track into a six and a half minute monster that tells a great story throughout it. Johan Was A Painter And An Arsonist is as sprawling and twisted as you would expect from a title like that, while you get a nice change of direction with Hide And Seek, this time it’s the turn of the keyboard to take the centre stage away from the guitar.
True Nature is as clopse as you come to a mainstream sounding track and it adds a nice flourish to the album, after that though you get my favourite track on here, the seven and a half minute genius of Anything You Love That Much You Will See Again and the strangely subdued but lovely Pale Blue Dot to finish with.
It’s rare to find such a musically good album, unique sound and humour, emotion and storytelling wrapped up in one album, but with this debut these two siblings hasve somehow managed it.
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