Many bands have died on stage but few bring about their own demise quite so frequently as Canadian garage folk collective The Burning Hell, who have met their maker so frequently in the lyrics of their songs that they must have more lives that a clowder of cats – I guess that’s what happens when you take the apocalypse as your muse.
The band, centred around songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalist Ariel Sharratt alongside an ever evolving group of collaborators, return with their latest LP Ghost Palace in March, which they cheerfully describe as their “most joyful collection of songs about death to date,” and to warm us up for this feast of clog-popping, they’ve shared lead single ‘Bottle of Chianti, Cheese and Charcuterie Board’, which once again sees Kom push up the daisies.
He does so through the musical biopic of a protagonist living life at surface level where nothing means anything, as the opening line, “Let’s have a baby, let’s watch a movie,” illustrates, a life stuffed with empty relationships, ever more luxurious possessions and the consumption of the titular cold cuts in shabby chic bistros. We follow him through divorce, death and reincarnation, ready for the whole sorry process to begin again. It’s told with The Burning Hell’s trademark wry humour and Kom’s knack for a delightfully constructed rhyming couplet, and backed with the unorthodox combination of pleasingly plinky-plonky synths, drum machine, double bass and a cosmic banjo solo – it’s a line-up that works so well it’s a wonder it’s not done more often.
Kicking the bucket has never sounded so good. Consider us suitably enthused for the forthcoming album – we look forward to going to a better place with The Burning Hell when it’s released in March.
‘Bottle of Chianti, Cheese and Charcuterie Board’ is available now through all of the usual streaming services and is taken from the forthcoming album Ghost Palace, out on BB*Island on 7th March: pre-order your copy now on digital download, vinyl or CD via Bandcamp
The Burning Hell set off on tour around Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Austria in April – full tour dates here
The Burning Hell: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Article by Paul Maps
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