GUANO POUNDHAMMER • JACK POUND • COLIN GIBSON • COLE HAMMER

Poison People

At a time when distinguishing one group's work from the next is increasingly hard, it's refreshing to encounter two musicians for whom imagination is not a dirty word. Boasting an impressively broad stylistic range - from bar room blues to electronica, absurdest comic vignettes to film noire atmospherics - "Domestic Bliss" loosely chronicles the souring of a passionate love affair into grotesque banality and mutual loathing. Underpinning this narrative is Jack Pound's rich bluesy voice floating smoothly over Colin Gibson's insistent, hypnotic beats. This is no straight line journey however, and there are fascinating diversions along the way: "The Holy Goalies Fall From Grace" is a wickedly funny pastiche of an Alan Bennett monologue, "Rainy Night In Cattlewash" a lovely paean to the Isle of Bim and "Beer in Heaven" a barking mad drinking song. "Crime of Passion" is also notable for having appeared on the singers' 1998 solo outing "Low Profile" (also worth checking out) here Colin Gibson takes it down the Euro- disco for an up tempo dance treatment, it slots in very neatly.
Recorded at Bird Guano's private studio, the sound quality is excellent - crisp, clear and full; the track sequencing is also right on the money, enabling the whole thing to hang together beautifully (no mean feat considering the variety of the material). So, first solo and now with Colin Gibson as Guano Poundhammer, Jack Pound has managed, much like the eponymous hero of "Holy Goalie", to score twice. Buy a copy - no blissful home should be without one.
                                                                                            
                                                                                                                  • Phil Wright. Arts Review. Manchester Free Press.

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