Reviews
Artist:The Remedy Club Album: Back To You
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: https://www.theremedyclub.ie
Wexford husband and wife duo K(ieran)J McEvoy and Aileen Mythen (who this time sings lead on all tracks) further let loose the inner rock hound evidenced on 2021's True Hand True Heart, deep diving into big guitar riffs from the get go with the thumping drums title track 'Back To You', part inspired by their daughter, Aileen belting out the chorus "You give me all that I needed and more/You give me more than I wanted/I didn't know that it was you, you break my heart in two/While bringing me back down to earth and back to life/Bringing me back down to earth and back to you". Things slow down for the more chiming notes of the love song 'Would You Be So Sure? ("Headed down the open road/We took the long way home/Off the beaten track/Into the great unknown/Never lookin' back"), a big building ballad with a second verse reference to Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams, before turning on the swagger for the brass flavoured Southern groove of 'Roll With It' that sees them joined by Kyshona Armstrong on harmonies, another eyes firmly on the road ahead number ("No years will let me down I'm just about to fix my crown/It's right on time, it's now, it's here today").
It's back to those big guitars and sky punching chords for 'It's Alright', which reimagines Fleetwood Mac as some punchy Texas country bar band, a song in tribute to and memory of Gavin Ralston, the late Dublin producer and musician whose guitar graced albums by Sharron Shannon and The Waterboys ("You left your mark in the way you played/A mighty man on the great crusade"). They take the pace back down for the acoustic strummed, pedal steel coloured 'Texas Sky', that comes with the amusing line "there's a town called Marfa, they even got a Prada store/20 years ago most Texans didn't know what a Prada was for".
Slow walking and soulful, 'Say A Prayer' manages to namecheck pretty much every denomination going, from Christianity to Islam and Buddhism to Jehovas, Sikhs, Jews, Rastafarians and even Scientologists with KJ's distorted voice speaking in the background, in what seems like a call to be saved from pandemic-fuelled depression ("My heart was wrapped in a cloud, the black dog he spoke aloud/Told me I'm his prisoner once again/He crept into my mind at night and stayed until broad daylight/And now it seems like he's my only friend").
Another pandemic anxiety number, 'Write Me A Letter' ("Well, it's so easy to let time pass/Slipping away from us all too fast") is more chugging country pop with added glockenspiel while the strings-swathed, organ-backed 'Complicated', a reflection on the modern worlds' lack of empathy ("Hunger cries across the sea/But no one's listening they've closed their door/Nothing to do with you and me") has a dreamier ballad feel that I'd swear has some ABBA dna to it.
By a way of a musical and lyrical shift, featuring slide by Gavin Grace, 'Boleyn's Blues' with its scat intro is a slow bluesy groove sung, as the title suggest, in the persona of Henry VIII's ill-fated wife ("Take my head/I don't need it anyway/Where I'm going Kings got no sway/Every year, a basket full of roses is laid upon my grave in May"), assuming she were a Southern R&B queen.
Circling, chiming electric guitar notes enfold 'Your Light Shines' is another that came from lockdown, looking for a sign of divine hope in what often felt like the end of days ("And I guess you always knew, that we might just confide in you/When the songs have been sung, the poems have been rhymed/The screens have all gone down and we are running out of time/Your light shines").
With its brass and "Dooh dooh dooh dooh dooh" refrain, 'Worthwhile' has a New Orleans tinge to its jaunty, folksy Americana gospel ("Find my soul on an evening stroll, the stars await their chance to shine/As the sun goes down I can hear the sound of a trumpet as the dancers fall in line/They take a leap of faith as they move to the rhythm and find their way"), the track gathering party power and handclaps as it heads to a close, though whether the line "just push me into the arms of Mister Cave" is a nod to Nick is open to debate.
It ends, aptly enough, with the five-minute 'I'm Going Home', Aileen's twang counterpointed by KJ's brooding resonating guitar and Glass's piano as it emerges from the gloom of lockdown despair as she sings "In the dark I hope I'll find a way/Where I'll unfold and open up the gate/There you'll be waiting just for me/I'll take your hand and live in harmony", taking the album out on a surging storm of sound before a dying fall.
If the previous album had them testing the waters and spreading their wings, this finds them in full glorious flight.
Mike Davies
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