Cowpunkabilly songs of conscience from the Burner Band frontman.

Released Date: 9th March 2024

Label: Shed Load Records

Format: vinyl /digital

Or Lewis “Burner” Pugh, as the cover proclaims, Pugh being also the front man of ATB favourites, The Burner Band, one of UK country music’s prime, and proud, proponents. Celtic punk is where, loosely, this one might fit best, even if fumes of a purer country seep in, increasingly, predominately from guesting Burner Band steel player, Steven Hicking, Jr. Politics and political history give the bulk of lyrical content to the songs; it fair to say Pugh is not happy with the state of things. And if that all sounds a bit dry, think on, as, like Billy Bragg, Pugh make his passion a vibrant and uplifting force, with quality of the tunes a distinct added bonus. You might even call him the cowpunk Billy Bragg!

The album opens, with a blaze of fiddle and Pugh’s hoarse holler, for Holbeck Moor, a jolly tale of when Mosley’s blackshirts came to Leeds in 1936, hoping to drum up membership, returning home with bloodied noses, as the factory workers came out to administer an organised thrashing. All but the fiddle is Pugh’s own playing, that coming from The Often Herd’s Niles Krieger, and it fair rollicks along, setting well the tone for the rest of the album. Next up is a hearty entreaty to join the union; in this case, the NEU, which advocates for and supports teachers. Now, within the annals of folk song there are many songs about unions, from Florence Reece’s Which Side Are You On to Joe Hill’s Power In A Union, often owing as much to the physical hardships encountered by miners and hard manual workers; this redresses the balance in favour of (arguably) less dangerous labour, and he pulls no punches: “I am a union man, just as strong as I can be, I do not like the bosses and the bosses don’t like me“. Proudly anthemic, I can see it adapting to fit the name of any union.

If the name of Violet Gibson is familiar, it may well be you have heard of her through the singing of Lisa O’Neill, who has a song, entitled Violet Gibson, about the same real character, incarcerated in a psychiatric unit, lifelong, for shooting, or trying to, Mussolini. She missed, grazing his nose. Rather than the first person lament of O’Neill, this is in the style of an unaccompanied broadsheet ballad, again in the first person. A banjo and then a drum join the vocal, and it is as short as it is chilling. It’s then back to Pugh’s Yorkshire stamping grounds for Featherstone Massacre, a tale of insurrection in 1893. It is the coal and colliery this time, when the army were called in to disperse the striking workforce. Two miners were killed and many maimed. The presence of a rolling banjo, harmonica and dobro gives a sense of contrast that helps buoy the song from overmuch similarity to the songs so far.

A change, now, of plot, as The Ballad Of Emily Swann tackles the combination of marital violence (or violence, as it is better known) and a patriarchal judiciary. This song goes the full Nashville, with both Krieger and the first appearance of Hicking. I can’t resist a song about a gallows pole and this is irresistible. It has no happy ending, clearly, but it still manages to be a love song. Sticking with this sort of cheery narrative, The Big Dig starts with the memorable line, “They’re digging up bodies for a train line“. Yes, it is the tale of how HS2 necessitated the upturning of St. James Gardens, near Euston, the site of a medieval cemetery, one, actually, of very many that HS2 has disinterred.

Again, showing no international boundaries to his ire, it is General Pinochet next in Pugh’s firing line. But it is more homegrown resistance to that regime that gets told here, of how the factory workers of Rolls Royce, East Kilbride refused to repair engines destined for the Chilean junta, in a show of solidarity with their Chilean counterparts. Like the documentary film made about this, in 2018, it is entitled Nae Pasaran. Or they shall not pass, perhaps the closest translation. I get that this may all be sounding a little dark and a little bleak, yet is far from it. Yes, the messages are direct and unsubtle, but no more so than, say, many of the songs Johnny Cash was choosing to sing, toward the end of his life.

Swinging On A Rope is more of a metaphor than perhaps you hoped, with howling harmonica and a bouncy banjo aiding and abetting Pugh’s plea against falling for the divide and rule tactics of those in control: “When you live life just to survive, it makes sense to pick sides. So it’s not that we have given up hope, but it’s hard to see when you are swinging on a rope“. Ouch, it is actually the most incendiary song here, revealing the despair in even trying to fight back, when the odds are anyway fixed. Thank goodness for some howling pedal steel to leaven the mood, from the disillusioned rage of the last song, into the flat affect of a disappointed witness. File alongside Ferocious Dog’s Slow Motion Suicide, Invisible Regiment documents the effect and aftermath of war and PTSD. Hicking ekes every iota of pathos out of his steel, and it becomes one of the most compelling songs here.

The final track on this challengingly engaging, or is it engagingly challenging, disc is Rich Preacher, the target lurking in broad daylight. Again the instrumentation is that sturdy mix of bluegrass and rockabilly, banjo with a lurching string bass and a snare. I can see how Pugh needed this to come out under his own name, it being so essentially personal to his beliefs, and much harder core than the Burner Band’s own material. No less convincing, mind, and he is someone I would expect to become a festival regular, not least within the rash of those now devoted to UK Americana. He probably already is, I noting his forthcoming tour schedule.

A final word needs to be said about the packaging, the design and all the pen and ink illustrations coming from Noah Brown, which accompany, in particular, the printed lyrics so well. This video, of Violet Gibson (Remember My Name) shows a good example.

Lewis Pugh (and/or The Burner Band) online: Website / Facebook / Bandcamp / Instagram

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