Hamell on Trial |
 |
If you haven’t heard of Hamell on Trial by now, what the hell have you been doing? It’s time to get with the game and learn how much power can physically be generated from one acoustic guitar that is strung up virtually with bass strings, then battered and tortured for three minutes at a time to make it spill every secret from deep within its guts like a prisoner of war holding on for dear life. So yes, Ed Hamell isn’t your typical folk hero, sitting on a stool, caressing you with tales of love and the loveless. Instead, he’s the one standing on top of the mountain shouting down at you; a one-man punk army. The anti-folk hero.
The ideal way to discover Hamell on Trial is to stumble upon his live show accidentally. In a world dominated by mediocre, half-assed musicians, when you finally discover a real show, you can feel the difference. That’s the Hamell effect, and you can never be prepared for that first site of a middle-aged, bald man, prowling the stage, pouring water over his head, and playing his acoustic in a style which would shred the average guitar into fifty pieces. Immediately, you become caught up in his stories, as he spits out lyrics like an angry Ice Cube, and even on that first listen, the message gets across to everyone in the room as if he is a preacher possessed by the devil. Then before you know it, the song ends and he moves into a stand-up comedy routine as equally effective as the music.
The shows are a complete thrill, and made more exciting as they pass due to the ever-increasing grin stretching from ear to ear. That said, the live show can also be his worst enemy when it comes to listening to the records. Mixed with other musicians and producers, the intensity of his songs always seem to come out diffused to an extent, and the moments that have you laughing out loud in a club, merely have you smiling at home: Still good, but never touching the same level of greatness.
This was to change with the live album Ed’s Not Dead: Hamell Comes Alive, an incredibly raw album, released due to the fact that Mr Hamell was involved in a car crash which broke his back and prevented him from doing much at all for a period. The recording captured had captured the real spirit of his show though, and without any attempts to touch it up, it’s almost the definitive Hamell release. However, that brings us up to present with the release of the new studio album Tough Love, which caused an initial burst of excitement inside me that this meant he would tour again, and another slight burst of apprehension as I wondered if he could pull it off on record this time.
That worry was shattered after only a minute of ‘Don’t Kill’, though, a song written from the point of view of God, doused in distortion, with some rock spirit thrown in, and a gloriously honest view of the world. Of course it’s not without humour, yet also interspersed with vitriol, as he reminds of us the simple insanity that is murder; the perfect way to bring Hamell back to life.
Quickly following is ‘Halfway’, almost teasingly being an acoustic pop song, yet it exists as a hilarious lyrical assault upon the media as we know it – “I see you on the cover of Rolling Stone / or one of those other corny music magazines / It’s just an excuse to sell fashion but bullshit occasionally sticks … / They can ease their conscious that the majority of their readership has the IQ, of well, a Creed fan”. The call to arms that follows is that we should all “Fuck it! Why go halfway?” A noble cause and a belief that should remain at the core of all of us, as well as also being a fantastic sing-a-long chorus.
You see, Hamell got it right on this album. His mix of anger, humour and honesty doesn’t come across as diluted in this instance. He can get away with veering from the high speed strum of ‘Oughta Go Around’ like a reborn Johnny Cash, to the tenderness of ‘Hail’, then to the unusual perspective of drug addition hidden behind the comedy of ‘Downs’, and all of it feels right. The album doesn’t represent the live experience but it doesn’t matter because on its own, Tough Love is 87% greatness, and by the time the songs hit the clubs they’ll transform into supreme beings.
Steven McCarron
:: back to top ::