Merry Hell - Head Full of Magic, Shoes Full of Rain

Good quality lyrics combined with music to match is the bread and butter of the music industry. It is however always nice to see when a band gets this balance right and as a result produces great music.

Merry Hell’s second studio album Head Full of Magic, Shoes Full of Rain can be described as a homemade soup. There are lots of different flavours and ingredients that all get mixed into a tasty whole.

The rock/folk combo of banjo and electric guitar in Loving the Skin You’re in along with the rock star vocals of Andrew Kettle, work really well with fantastic lyrics that slot perfectly.

Interestingly it’s a big jump to the more traditional sounding Emerald Green that is slower and focuses more on the gentle romantic story told by Andrew and Virginia Kettle. The song is very sweet and the duet shows us the variety that Merry Hell can reach in their lyric writing and composing.

The sounds in this album are mixed and matched in each song so you get nice combinations of folk, rock and some country-sounding patterns. In particular My Finest Hour really brings the musicians together into a big mix of styles and methods to shake up the listener and give them the full spectrum that can be offered.

As well as the musical combinations, the lyrics and song writing are equally as well crafted. Build a Mansion for example has a great set of lyrics that gets firmly planted into your mind before the song has even finished. The sweet voices of Virginia and Andrew are ones of storytellers and really help build up an atmosphere for the listener.

Whether your prefer the more rock style songs like Dreaming of the Time and Iron Man or the softer folk tunes of Bury Me Naked and I Hope You Don’t Mind you will fully immerse yourself in what Merry Hell has to offer.