(Muso's Guide, February 11, 2009)
Single review
Some ballsy troubadours play it fast and loose on that finest of genre lines - the line between rock and folk music.
Get it wrong - all those repetitive beats and fiddles - and you wind up like the Rednex, best known for 1994’s ‘Cotton Eye Joe’. Shudder.
Get it right, and you’re talking the greatest - Bob Dylan, the man who judged it all perfectly.
In that regard, Threatmantics - blithely attempting to strike that precarious balance - are coasting.
Setting their store out early doors, ‘Little Bird’ hears singer/violist Heddwyn Davies playing up a stringed storm. The sawing strings back lyrics of a common folk thread, witness ‘Woke up this morning in the afternoon‘ - while the verse gives way to unexpected crashing rock guitars. Overall the whole quiet bit/loud bit schtick is a little wearing, but clocking in at a mere two minutes 53 seconds means that there’s no time for aggravation.
‘Sum Sum’ is a bit of a different beast. Kicking off like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with a country soul, they romp with repetitive riffs which make a mockery of “melodious”. Guitar slowly gives way to more viola, and the two stringed instruments subsequently share the stage in an uneasy, mercurial dalliance.
Repeated listens will show for the record that Heddwyn’s voice is unusual, but it works with the instruments in use here. On ‘Sum Sum’, the implementation of some Supergrass-style harmonies give something more obvious in the way of modern pop touchstones and structure.
Despite their initial disparity, these songs hang together quite well, and Threatmantics come out as an accomplished trio with some off-the-wall meanderings which really pay off.
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