Reviews

Artist: The Martin Harley Band
Album:Money Don't Matter
Label: Junkbait
Tracks: 13
Rating: ****
Contact:  www.martinharleyband.com

I was once told not to trust bands that sit down. They can't be bothered to reach out to you, they want you to make the effort to come to them. They lack passion, it's ceased to be about the music, it's become about them. Well having seen the Martin Harley Band live and caught their album, that rule is most definitely being rewritten.
Of course playing lap guitar almost compels you to find a chair, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't rock out when required. Let's be frank here The Martin Harley Band are more than capable of rocking out when the the song demands it.
As acoustic trios go, the band, Martin Harley, Adam Wolters and Pete Swanton, have a pretty strange set of instruments to arrange for. Apart from lap and regular guitars, there's sitar, balalaika, harmonica and one of the most under used and under rated instruments in music, the two string stick base. Apart from Morphine, I can't think of any other band that uses it, at least not with the same effect as this combo. Even the drumkit, is missing items considered essential by a lot of other bands.
The result is a sound that veers towards night club blues. It does draw you in, because the music is well written, not because there is anything pretentious about the delivery. The beats are kept simple. The vocals ease their way across the sound especially when they are being drawn into the harmonies.
The Martin Harley Band have a sound that's very intimate, on the edge of emotive. The slides draw you from one place in the song to the next. Occasionally rocking out to give you an idea of the range that the band can get out of their simple, yet evocative instrumentation.
Light a candle or three, failing that just turn the lights down low. Relax of the sofa and just let "Money Don't Matter" happen to you. The Martin Harley Band draw out the passion in their music because they spend so much time adding it. Just prior to reviewing the cd I happened to play it in the car on the way up to Winchester, bizarrely it also seems to work as great driving music is well. Capture both those markets and success awaits you boys.

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