In the summer of ’22, Ross Wilson assembled a 7-piece band to accompany him on Blue Rose Code‘s various festival stages. Ross, as you may well know, is more than comfortable performing as a solo performer, or as part of a stripped-back duo or trio, but the opportunity to flesh out his sound with guitar, keys, drums and a brass section proved too great to pass up…and his band and their input stretched him in great, fantastical directions as a result. Anyone who has caught him live with the full-fat Blue Rose Code will have witnessed shows akin to euphoria and religious experience. Going full-on Dexys, the band would go running – actual running – and then do press-ups backstage, right up until the point they were due on, so that by the time they’d begun their first number they were literally hitting the ground running. No easing into a set, no feeling their way with an unknown audience, it was bam! Bam! BAM! We are Blue Rose Code and this is what we do; off-mike hollers and whoops, loud boot stomps to emphasise big moments in the songs, a hand on heart as a key lyric is sung…you couldn’t help but get caught up in it all.
What Blue Rose Code did on those festival dates is very much apparent on the new album, Bright Circumstance. Building on that Dexys by way of Style Council approach honed through communal exercise and live shows, brass stabs as sharp as a stiletto puncture the Walls Come Tumbling Down stomp of opener Jericho. A fat and thumping four to the floor beat keeps it moving forward, shimmers of Hammond easing quietly into the gaps between brass and vocal and its call and response section. There’s a drop out in the middle, the spot where eager audiences were (and will be) invited to join in with enthusiastic hand claps, before the band revs up again and drives the song home in a brassy rush of Stax proportions. That’ll be yr album opener, and no mistake.
Blue Rose Code – Jericho
If you’ve seen Blue Rose Code live, in whichever guise, you’ll know that Ross touches on the big subjects; life, love, social issues and our unfair society, and they’re all here on Bright Circumstances. Most of the recent live set is present, and if you only know it from a stripped back show, the breadth of musicianship and colour afforded by the assembled musicians might leave you momentarily breathless. Sadie is carried by quietly brushed acoustic guitars, swelling, weeping pedal steel and more of that glorious Hammond shimmer; exactly the sort of track the still-switched-on Rod Stewart of the ’70s might have done to great effect.
A scraping, violin – think Neil Young’s Running Dry – scratches its way across the socio-political bite of Thirteen Years and its ‘are they heating or are they eating?‘ refrain. The bold Ross found himself in trouble last year when he managed to sneak this into a live performance being broadcast to the nation on BBC Radio 4. Inspiration is infiltration. A loose and jazzy Amazing Grace rounds off side one, Wilson taking liberties with his phrasing to great effect, the band showcasing their talents as their leader directs them in the ebb and flow of the melody.
Side two is the softer of the two sides, and it’s bookended wonderfully by two great tracks. The opener, Peace In Your Heart, will be familiar to audiences on any of the more recent BRC dates. A slow acoustic builder, it unravels into the sort of gospel folk that John Martyn and Van Morrison once did with great effect and, on this evidence, should see Ross Wilson considered an equal. You can dress your songs up in brass and electricity if you want to, but what it really comes down to, Jim, is a universal message played simply and sung well. There are no frills on Peace In Your Heart, and it’s the perfect comedown from the kitchen sink approach on side one.
Blue Rose Code – Peace In Your Heart
Midway through, you’ll find Don’t Be Afraid, its moody ambience and close-miked minor key atmospherics revealing fantastic harmonies and off-kilter counter melodies with each repeated listen. Funereal horns lead the song upwards to its heavenly conclusion, the vocal refrain namechecking God with all the gravitas and straightforwardness of Nick Cave.
The religious theme continues on Now The Big Man Has Gone, a lament for a pal no longer here. Lyle Watt, Ross’s long-standing foil on guitar and finder of the bluest of blue notes in any situation leads us in with a quietly strummed mandolin before the song opens up with more female harmonies, a mournful accordion and tinkling piano. And then it’s over.
It’s a great album, Bright Circumstance. It finds Ross in good spirits, in a good place in life and surrounded by sympathetic musicians and guests (Eddi Reader, Donald Shaw, Naomi Stirrat). He’s found peace and contentment, faith and spirituality and we are the benefactors of this. A decade into a music career that has seen him reach new heights and gather new fans with each subsequent release, it would be great if Bright Circumstance was the album that saw Ross finally lose the label of ‘best kept secret’ and brought him into the collective consciousness of music listeners with a fondness for great songs played and sung outrageously well. He deserves it. And so do we.
Bright Circumstance is released on the 10th May. You can get it everywhere, including Blue Rose Code‘s Bandcamp page (although the pre-order link isn’t quite live yet).
Plain Or Pan 