Police Dog Hogan - From The Land Of Miracles [2012][EAC,log,cue. FLAC]

Artist: Police Dog Hogan
Release: From The Land Of Miracles
Discogs: another not on discogs
Released: 2012
Label: Major Tom
Catalog#: MTCD004
Format: FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue / CD
Country: UK
Style: rock, country, folk, americana

01. Better go now
02. Black Crow
03. The More things change
04. Jennifer
05. Fraserburgh Train
06. Devil Jim
07. Matilda
08. Let it Burn
09. World Enough
10. Second Life
11. The Banks

Police Dog Hogan are a high-energy seven-piece (including fiddle, banjo, mandolin, drums and guitars) that fuses country-folk to a pop sensibility. The band is rapidly building a following through joyous, foot-stomping live performances, having received rapturous receptions at festivals including Cornbury, Larmer Tree, Camp Bestival and Kendal Calling, and in sellout shows in London venues such as Bush Hall, The Troubadour and The 100 Club.

Eliot James coaxes a sharp, electric and contemporary edge from the band’s folk, country and bluegrass-influenced line-up, adding some spectacular harmonies and marshalling the band’s wide-ranging musical passions and influences.

The songs of writers James Studholme and Pete Robinson range from the reflective to the flat-out foot-stomping, interleaved with flashes of rockabilly, blues and Americana. Tim Dowling’s banjo is a constant, surprisingly delicate presence, often mixed with mandolin to produce compelling soundscapes, not least in the “trancegrass” of Black Crow or the simple beauty of Jennifer, a gloriously sunny love song. Distant bluegrass echoes – with a very English twist – also appear in the fiddle-playing of Eddie Bishop, one minute driving the rollicking album opener, Better Go Now, the next weaving sparse, mournful figures in the enigmatic Matilda.

The album also has its anthemic numbers, though few bands can have had the courage – or the songwriting ingenuity – to produce a song like Fraserburgh Train, based on the story of a lone piper on the D-Day beaches.

Everything is welded together by the inventive rhythmic backing of bassist Adam Bennette and Michael Giri, former drummer with The Lilac Time.

FROM THE LAND OF MIRACLES was recorded in Eastcote Studios on tape – the better to capture the acoustic warmth of the band’s approach – and mixed at Abbey Road.