CLIVE BARNES
The Ghost Country (Leander Records)

****
4/5

While Barnes has studiously earned a reputation at home and abroad as a fine blues-style guitarist, his fifth album belatedly signals his emergence as a singer and songwriter of equal note.
Comparisons to Kelly Joe Phelps, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen are all valid. Shotgun Grin has some gritty banjitar, Hammond organ and sureshot vocal backing from Siobhan O'Brien.
The title track and City Lights see Barnes channeling his love of the aforementioned Mr. Waits, while the chillingly soulful Dust is notable for it's impeccable guitar playing and voice that seems to seep from beyond the basement.
The delicious Long Way Around has echos of Springsteen, and Looking Down The Cross is simultaneously insistent and mesmerizing, with fret melting guitar figures in spades. There is an achingly forlorn quality to the singing and pedal steel on Losing too.
Lyrically, The Ghost Country draws comparison with Dylan's mid 80's preoccupation with the movies, with images of the lost, the innocent, desolate deserts, the unbearable sun and trains borrowed from the big screen.
Exuding a throat catching melancholy, and romantic and bleak in turns, it sounds like an album made for all eternity.

Jackie Hayden
Hotpress
Vol 33 Issue 21
Nov 21st 2009