Given an invitation by Elles Bailey to sit back, buckle up and enjoy the ride, it would be churlish to refuse…
Release Date: 9th August 2024
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Format: CD/ LP (coloured options)/digital
Let’s set the scene and talk swings and roundabouts.
Swings – a nightmarish journey to Cambridge Folk Festival. Taking the M62 option rather than the M6 alternative results in major delays and a build up of frustration where the steam from the ears is causing disruption to the climate. Roundabouts – Beneath The Neon Glow is on the music player and as I haven’t worked out the intricacies of playback in the new car yet, it’s on repeat. Swings and roundabouts maybe, but the chance to absorb Beneath The Neon Glow into the psyche and it’s a result.
Stepping out of the half light into the neon glow, Elles already has 10 powerpoints under the belt from Powerplay and 1972 is even played over the PA before The Feeling come on stage at the 2024 Underneath The Stars festival. After Shining In The Half Light she’s fetaured regularly on the ATB pages too. Elles Bailey is everywhere, even Cropredy 2024!
Ten tracks – the classic five songs per side of vinyl – ensure quality over quantity. Less is more, the best things in smaller packages and all that. The opening gambit of the carpe diem philosophy of Enjoy The Ride is ripe for an album opening shuffle. Some nice touches of slide guitar and a brooding but determined vocal set the scene for an album of sweet and seductive country bluesy rock and beyond. No doubt dressed in a blinding sparkly sequinned jumpsuit and cowboy hat.
It’s a set that has Elles declaring how “the album broke me apart and made me whole all at the same time ,” and how “it’s been a real journey of discovery with some of the songs written through some really dark moments and others during the highest of highs.” Sassy and well, not quite blatant in anger but certainly passionate, “I don’t want to love any more” line at the close of the chorus of If This Is Love might offer a key insight.
Ride accepted, I can’t help but feel a hint of recognition as the acoustic intro and tempo to Ballad Of A Broken Dream isn’t dissimilar to Marillion’s Don’t Hurt Yourself even with a similar sentiment. Perhaps Elles has been listening to Marbles…or not. That easy vibe heads into Leave A Light On which has an earworm of a chorus that Dolly Parton would kill for
The bluesy swagger is at its most potent in 1972, backing vocals adding a velvet cabaret swing and for anyone who’s able to remember what it was like livin’ in nineteen seventy two, this might have been your soundtrack. Starsky & Hutch maybe playing on the TV and Huggy Bear, decked out in the bell bottoms and platforms of the lyric making a long fur coated guest appearance (just like the one Elles wears on the cover but floor length!). Fusing the styles, Elles reaches into the bag marked ‘soulful and aching’ – “gonna catch my breath at the wonder of it all” she croons – philosophizing with aplomb on Silhouette In A Sunset. Do we detect a hint of poignancy in the mournful slide and in the romance, wonder and awe?
Flip the record over and there again is the return of acoustic strum and earworm chorus on Truth Ain’t Gonna Save Us. Would love to see Andrew Roachford slip free of Mike & The Mechanics and cover this one. It’s a curtain raiser to a second half that turns to more brooding thoughts matched in musical stakes by a band who are able to create empathetic musical soundscapes. The bigger production of Let It Burn that could be a Bond theme contender, paves the way for the distinctly lower key finale of Turn Off The News. Sounds like the weight of the world is on weighing down the shoulders with more than a hint of desperation.
Under the layers lies a complex record. There’s reflection and introspection, there’s pain and anguish, but there’s also determination, redemption and hope. And, most importantly, a whole load of love, all delivered on what is, hands down, a top notch set of songs.
Here’s If This Is Love:
Elles Bailey Online: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / YouTube
Keep up with At The Barrier: Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram / Spotify / YouTube