Folk-punk stalwart, Gaz Brookfield, eyes incipient middle age in 10th studio album with typical catchy tunes about difficult issues.
Release Date: 1st August 2025
Label: Land Pirate Records
Format: CD / Vinyl /Digital
GAZ BROOKFIELD
For over 15 years Gaz Brookfield has been the “solo acoustic guy” leading audiences in communal singing of his anthems of mental anguish and West Country whimsy. In this his 10th studio album, he is increasingly preoccupied by the advancing years, but his ability to turn often difficult issues into a catchy hook and sing-along chorus is undimmed.
If you are unfamiliar with his work, the most obvious reference point is Frank Turner. Live, his audience has the same one-big-family feel – and stylistically their songs have much in common. Fans are word perfect on Brookfield’s tales of diabetes diagnosis, school bullying and ever-incipient depression, but equally on lighter-hearted paeans to Ordnance Survey maps and the evils of talking in the front row of gigs.
Brookfield typically performs live with just an acoustic guitar, but here he is in full band mode – albeit playing many of the instruments himself with the helping hands of his occasional Company of Thieves collaborators Chris Webb, Ben Wain and Jon Buckett. Self produced and recorded, the album has a feel of Americana with swooping lap steel guitar from Melvin Duffy joining Wain’s fiddle.
LOVE SONG WITH A TWIST
The record kicks off with a typical big-chorus up-beat tune RIP Inner Me with fiddle and piano taking the fore, before launching into the punkier Ship in a Bottle in a Ship which is destined to be a live favourite. Caravan Bingo is a love song to his wife with a twist (“I love it that you are just as strange as me”).
Things take a downturn in both speed and subject matter with Plot Twist (“Is there a way out of this madness/that is not lying at the bottom of a glass”), but however dark the subject matter the tunes remain great.
The title track ends side one, with a glockenspiel solo on top of his musings on getting older. The pace picks up with Americana twang on The Dance of Ned Fallor, leading in to a similarly countrified lament for his pet dog One Final Lullaby.
OSTENSIBLY CHEERFUL
A punkier feel returns with Surely You Know before the fiddles are unleashed on Sing With Me – an ostensibly cheerful song about how much he owes to a parent which on closer listening (“See the view before the mist descends”) has overtones of the fears many of us have about our parents mental health as they grow old.
The album finishes with Admin, a song which sums up the themes of the record both musically with its underlying slide guitar and lyrically: “Your 40s are surely a difficult time / and if lucky we’re about half way through life / but I’m still none the wiser, I haven’t a clue / what the hell I am doing – and neither do you.”
Waiting for Wisdom builds on his most recent releases with a strong set of songs and an almost Smiths-like contrast between great upbeat melodies and lyrics which venture into darker territory. So many singer-songwriters have poetic lyrics but forget to add a memorable chorus or even a recognisable tune – not something you could ever accuse Gaz of. The onset of middle age never sounded better.
CATCH HIM ON TOUR
Gaz Brookfield is touring the album across the country until December, ending with the now traditional hometown Christmas concert with the full band in Bristol, before setting off again visiting a village hall near you in the spring. Catch him if you can.
Gaz Brookfield: Website / Bandcamp / Facebook
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