The Demon Barbers - +24db

The Demon Barbers are well-known on the festival circuit, with a reputation as a lively, entertaining stage act, enhanced by the fact that the Demon Barber Roadshow combines the band’s music with traditional dance - clog, morris and rapper. Indeed, they’ve just been nominated for Best Live Act in the BBC Folk Awards 2009.

However, personally I’ve found their previous recorded releases (’Waxed’ & ’Uncut’) to be a bit disappointing. There are highs therein, but the albums are patchy, and at times Damien Barber’s vocals have seemed to wobble. So I approached their latest release, +24db, with mixed expectations.

I have to say, to my mind, the EP marks a step forward for the band. +24db is only a short release - 6 tracks, 24 minutes - but it’s the best, and more consistent, of the Barbers’ releases so far. Mainly a collection of traditional tunes, the CD opens with Damien’s self-penned ’The Good Old Days’ - a great track with some gorgeous fiddle work and decent lyrics - before moving into a laid back cover of the Grateful Dead’s ’Friend of the Devil’.

The EP then turns to the traditional tracks, starting with a version of ’The Amphitrite’, about the rounding of Cape Horn and the joys of Spanish girls (’ not like them Plymouth girls that’ll pawn and sell your clothes’). Then comes a jazzed up cover of the Child Ballad ’Betsy Bell and Mary Gray’ (just referred to as ’Betsy Bell’ on the CD). I’ll admit I wasn’t entirely taken by the arrangement at first, but it’s a definite grower and the claustrophobic feel does fit with the plague tale.

Pit Boots is probably my favourite on the EP - a humorous northern miners song of our hero taking advantage of the young female without ever removing said item of footwear.

The CD then wraps up with a version of Death & the Lady. As with Betsy Bell, the arrangement has been updated with heavier, bassier elements, but for me, this time it doesn’t really work, which is a shame as, overall, this is a corking little album.