Review of Tooth & Nail (CD+DVD Deluxe Edition)

Billy Bragg has fifty-five, salt and pepper hair and finally a nice beard like a wise man who always knows what to say and how to say it. Used for thirty years to "mix pop and politics" ("Waiting for the great leap forwards") and to develop a personal path to the "socialism of the heart" ("Upfield") has not lost fighting spirit, commitment and attention to current events anti-fascist (these hours are its timely comments on the case Di Canio). It is no longer the age and the time (not only, at least) for hymns union with banners or pop song winking for the "Sexuality", when Billy played willy-nilly according to the rules of the music business: he is the first to know . After some encouraging signs of recovery and crush highlighted by "Mr. love and justice", a qualification is perfect for the business card, it was time for a disc meditation, deep and intense as "Tooth & Nail", a collection of songs that starts from an acute personal grief (the loss of the mother) to wonder about the future and the difficult art of living and at the heart of the carpet existential questions and non-transitory (number one problem: how to build and maintain long-standing relationships in life time with people who love each other).

It took, therefore, a producer empathetic and sensitive. And Bragg, by his own admission "not a creature to study," he found it overseas just settling for five days - the right time to capture inspiration, as was done in the old days - in the basement of Pasadena that Joe Henry transformed into a recording studio where for years they manufacture musical gems. You'll also be charged, to American, to discs with a single mold, forging a unique sound achieved by using always - in this case - the usual clan of prodigious musicians (Greg Leisz on guitars, Jay Bellerose drums and percussion, David Piltch bass and double bass, Patrick Warren on keyboards). But those sounds scattered and measured that have become his signature, it explains well the same Bragg, in this circumstance have created "an atmosphere of spontaneity and space that has allowed my voice come to the fore." The voice, in fact. Ever so warm and present, in the past, ever so persuasive and expressive (the resounding vanished cockney accent of a time, in the initial "January Song" emerges a polite falsetto), perfect vehicle for looking compassionate and full of humanity that Bragg reserve always to his fellows and to the events of life.

Accomplice Henry and his band, the bard of Barking has tied again this time the threads of "Mermaid Avenue" (volumes one and two) engraved with Wilco at the turn of the new millennium once again honoring the great father Woody Guthrie with a version reflexive and sore the classic "I is not got no home": mat of a disk that, in spite of the quintessential "Englishness" of the character, spreads strong scents of "Americana" between brushes and autoharp, piano and chimes of a Leisz is rewriting between lap and pedal steel, mandolin and mandolin, Dobro and Weissenborn.

Remains imprinted, of "Tooth & Nail", the great melodic and instrumental clarity, the proceeding at a slow and relaxed as those that the protagonist curls on snow-covered trails of the video for "No one knows nothing anymore", a beautiful ballad about the difficulty and fluctuating increasing grasp of the meaning of life in times confusing and contradictory. Jousting between country colors ("Chasing Rainbows" is almost disascalica), old time folk ("Do unto others") and blues ("Over You"), the album everything is moving in one dimension and acoustic shock from a single collection moderate acceleration and power ("There Will Be a Reckoning," the piece more "political", is one of the two selections retrieved from "Pressure Drop", theatrical and musical show was staged in the UK in 2010).

And 'this confidence, that you credit towards employees Bragg who willingly accepts to give carte blanche to the musicians and Henry, author of two texts from the language much more elusive and dream of her ("Over you , "the charming" Your name on my tongue "). Billy, for his part, is always capable of synthesizing a striking and memorable phrases in the human condition and a psychological state ("How can a man be strong / if you can not even pick up the phone / to say you're wrong?" Is how in "Swallow my pride", emoziante white soul ballad), confident of being able to find "how to build with my poetry / a roof over our heads" (as lazy and easygoing "Handyman blues"). It is apparent, here and elsewhere, a wisdom and a capacity of introspection that are both a goal and a stepping stone to what is to come, even when sadly Bragg gives his farewell to the old companions ("Goodbye, goodbye") . And there is, in most of the album, a gravitas appropriate and not at all overwhelming ("Do unto others" quotes the most famous precept of the Gospel according to Luke, "do to others what you would like them to do to you"), tempered by 'epilogue optimistic and whistling of "Tomorrow's going to be a better day", a number of music hall or the Frank Capra comedy that plays Bragg, however, in chiaroscuro, his voice tired and fatigued. Like a classic novel or an art film, "Tooth & Nail" sports a sturdy moral fiber and tells a story of human revenge. Keen observer of the times and customs, for some time Bragg seemed to have lost the feeling with the music, more at ease as a polemicist than as singer-songwriter. Emboldened by the new scenario in which artists increasingly have the opportunity to interact with the public without the need for intermediaries (ideally, for a storyteller like him), has found sap energy and a language with which to express themselves: so that on the radar of those who is ready to tune in "Tooth & Nail" sends strong signals and clear messages of hope and songs that are worth listening to opening the ears and heart.

TRACKLIST

"January Song"
"No one knows nothing anymore"
"Handyman blues"
"I is not got no home"
"Swallow my pride"
"Do unto others"
"Over You"
"Goodbye, goodbye"
"There will be a reckoning"
"Chasing Rainbows"
"Your name on my tongue"
"Tomorrow's going to be a better day"