Genre - Dark / Western / Atmospheric / Rock / Acoustic / Soundscape
Label - Pledge Music / Self Released
Track listing:
01 - Nothing Left Here (Part 1)
02 - End Of Days
03 - All Hope Is Gone
04 - Suddenly Righteous
05 - Wilderness
06 - Nest Of Vipers
07 - No Party
08 - Travelogue
09 - Night Fall
10 - Find The Beast
11- Devil Man Jump
12 - Fall From Grace
13 - Swimming In The Dowling Pool
14 - The Only Devil
15 - Sun's Gonna Shine
16 - Nothing Left Here (Part II)
Former
Apes, Pigs and Spacemen front man,
Paul Miro, returns with his latest solo offering in the form of
Sinombre Vol 1: All Hope Is Gone, released via Pledge Music.
As Paul describes it,
"
Sinombre is a two-hour long project, split into two albums, each of which features sixteen tracks. The first album is entitled
All Hope is Gone".
"Like many journeys,
Sinombre started out as a fortuitous accident. I’ve said about some previous albums, ‘this was not what I set out to make. ’I was already at work on a new solo album, which had the working title Snow Monkey, which I will record at some point in the future. Quite a lush affair that, if it resembles anything from my previous albums, is probably more in the vein of Scary Tales with more of an edge.
I then received a brief for some TV music. Dark, western, sinister, atmospheric, demons and monster stuff. It isn’t often that I get to immerse myself so freely in a TV project - generally, there are a lot of restrictive rules of form and style applied. But on this one, I had a free hand. And I quickly realised that it was something I wanted to develop further, outside of the imposed lyrical strictures.
Writing about mythical demons and monsters just made me think about all of the real demons we are currently powerless to resist. Corporate, financial, religious, political monsters, right wing populism, corruption, greed, inequality, suffering and a general sense of prevailing hopelessness. The next logical progression in my head was, ‘What happens when it all comes tumbling down?’
And that was the starting point for the project: at the edge of, and after the fall."
" If you are inclined, you can follow it as a concept album that goes full circle. But, each song stands as it’s own story. Moments of darkness, and moments of light. Because it is so stylised and nothing like anything I have done before, and because it has a life of it’s own, I gave it the
Sinombre identity,
Sinombre being the beast that runs throughout the two albums, with me as the agent charged with presenting the story. You can take it like that, or just listen to it as a bunch of songs about which I happen to feel supremely proud."
But how does the album sound?
Well the album opens with
Nothing Left Here (part 1), which is a stripped down acoustic based track, that serves to set the listener up for what is to follow. Its a melancholy and beautiful track too.
Next up we have
End Of Days, this is basically a dark soundscape with
Terrorvision's Tony Wright providing a narrative that really does set the lyrical tone of the album.
All Hope Is Gone follows, this track has been the albums lead (digital only) single , and a great song it is too. Acoustically driven with some great dark western flavourings. One of my favourite songs to be released so far in 2016!
Next we have the brilliant
Suddenly Righteous, a brilliant song with a real country feel to it that slowly builds a real groove. Another outstanding track!
Wilderness is up next, a short instrumental track that clocks in at just over a minute long, A dark western soundscape of a track.
Nest Of Vipers follows, continuing the western theme musically, that again builds into a solid rocking track. Another great song! Next we have
No Party, a great song that builds from a semi acoustic intro to a typical Paul Miro rocker!
Travelogue is another great short instrumental track that serves as a great intro for
Night Fall. which picks up the tempo some what, becoming a dark atmospheric track with a fast pulse!
Find The Beast is up next, and is one of the albums real gems. A great western flavoured almost rockabilly song t is well, simply brilliant!
Devil Man Jump follows, with is dark heavy western flavoured groove.
Fall from Grace, is a beautiful mellow track, again acoustically driven with some western flavoured baritone and flamenco guitars. Next we have something a little special in
Swimming In The Dowling Pool. A great song featuring the talents of and inspired by one Mr
Willie Dowling of
Honeycrack, Jackdaw4 and
Dowling Poole fame!
The Only Devil is another great song with a heavy south western feel that just keeps building as it moves along.
Sun's Gonna Shine is pretty much the album big ballad. A great song with some absolutely brilliant lyrics! The album closes out with
Nothing Left Here (Part II), which is a bigger production continuation of the albums opener. A great ay to close out a great album.....now I am rally looking forward to part two!
Very Very highly recommended!!
Rating: 10/10
