REVIEW: THE QUIREBOYS – AMAZING DISGRACE (2019)

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I went to see Bad Company about 10 years back. On that reformation tour they did. Me and my brother turned up at the NEC arena in Birmingham and the show was ace.

Sitting just in front of us that night, was Spike from The Quireboys. I resisted the urge to go up to him and tell him he was lead singer in one of my favourite bands. In fact, not just one of my favourites, but one of the most seminal of my life too.

All those rock n roll bands that I review now, the ones that sound a bit like The Faces, a touch like The Stones, something akin to The Black Crowes? Every single one is because we loved “A Bit Of What You Fancy” by The Quireboys. How proud I was when one of my fave bands sponsored the shirt of Wayne “Bertie” Biggins. A permatanned lower league striker who was my footballing hero at the time (because two of their then members were fans of the same team as me).

How proud I am of them still, given that they’ve never really altered. Not for them doing what most late 80s bands did and to try and keep up with trends, nope. Instead they just did their own thing. Not the same thing every time, but, whatever the fashion of the time  was, The Quireboys, you could rely on, to release something superb, that sounded like The Quireboys.

Which brings me back to that Bad Company gig. Spike – although a Geordie – now lives in The West Midlands, but his presence at the local gig for him was underlined by the fact that he was in full stage regalia. Whether he dresses like that to go to the shops, you had best ask the staff in Tesco’s but there was something tremendously pleasing about Spike being Spike at someone else’s gigs, as well as his own.

And on what – I think – is studio album 11 for the band, he is in rare form. “Amazing Disgrace” is in many respects a continuation of 2016’s “Twisted Love” which won album of the year on this site, but there are subtleties here that make “….Disgrace” distinct from everything else.

Not least the horn drenched opener “Original Black Eyed Son” which is more soul-filled than they’ve been, perhaps, since “Bitter, Sweet and Twisted” and which shows a band that is in confident mood. Simply put, if you were playing it safe, you don’t make this record.

“Sinner Serenade” is right up there as one of the songs of the year, the very essence of the band bottled for all to use when they choose. Guy Griffin, who has been Spike’s right hand man since 1990 just instinctively knows how to channel these things and the guitar work is brilliant throughout, but particularly so here.

“Seven Deadly Sins” is the kind of strutter that Spike was born to make, and even on the Beatles-ish guitar lines for the slower more deliberate title track, there is a feeling that if at this stage of their careers you could forgive, maybe a band for phoning it in a little, that has not happened here.

One of the reasons I love Country music is The Quireboys “Sweet Mary Anne” (a track on their debut record) and they’ve always had a bit of that in the sound, not least on “Eve Of The Summertime” – a laid back, sun dappled thing, while “This Is It” which comes a few afterwards basically doubles the dose.

Keith Weir on the keyboards has been a fixture in the band for goodness knows how long since replacing Chris Johnstone, and he is one of the best. There is a whiff of Elton John about “California Blues” largely thanks to his tinkling, and his organ on “Feels Like A Long Time” is worth getting the record for on its own.

Everything that’s good, though about The Quireboys in 2019 is shown in the last three songs. “Slave #1” finds the classic sound without rehashing, the utterly beautiful “Dancing In Paris” is a mature work, that actually wouldn’t have worked on the early stuff. They don’t want “Sex Party’s” anymore, as it were, fantasies change even if the sounds don’t. Perhaps the most surprising, however, is the last one. “Medusa, My Girl”. Folky, in a way they haven’t been before. There is more than a hint of The Levellers here – and I never thought I’d be saying that.

In many ways, though it almost doesn’t matter, because the overriding thing about “Amazing Disgrace” is that it is merely just more proof that it is about time we started talking about The Quireboys in the terms they deserve. Simply the most consistent pure rock n roll band we’ve ever had.

This is another gem of many.

Rating 9/10

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