The Communal Well
Album: Under A Western Sky
Label: Dirty Water Blues
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.facebook.com/thecommunalwell

"Under A Western Sky" is the latest from French based outfit, The Communal Well and kicks off with a classic sounding rock 'n' roller in the shape of, "The Road", complete with scorching blues harp and blistering rhythms as it name checks a load of highway sounds.

What surprises is that it's then followed by a dirty blues/soul song, "Scratch My Back", sleaze laden with a cellar club feel, back in the days when the could be full of flick knife carrying hoodlums, cigarette hanging from the lip.

In a way it's like the band have decided to open the album with the two outer markers as the rest of the album seems to be contained between those two points to a varying degree, with the exception of the 47 second instrumental interlude, "The Border", which feels like it's got the mournful touch of a person stood on one side of the fence, looking wistfully across to the other.

If I have a criticism of the album, and I do, it is that it feels like a collection of songs, rather than an album. There is nothing to fault any individual song, but there's something about the ordering of the tracks that gives the whole a disjointed feel and that remains true if I put the album on random play.

If I were to put it another way, it sounds like the band have chosen to put their best songs on the album, nothing wrong with that per se, but it means there's no real flow to it and as I type this I figure out what's causing that bug. "Under A Western Sky" feels like a very live album, one that seduces you into thinking it's a set and it's not, it's an album and that jars just a little.

That aside there's plenty to recommend "Under A Western Sky", you can feel The Communal Well's love of what they're doing flow through the songs, this is not the pristine of a museum piece this is the scratched and bumped old favourite that you turn to in preference

Neil King