TOM BOMBADEAL: Further Into The Woods – 2009 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Family Name - What Is it About The Night? – Samhain – The Witchdoctor’s Song – Getting The Riddle – See It Come Down
SOUNDBITE: “I met an old farmer riding into town/ He was driving to market behind his old grey/ So I jumped up beside him and this he did say…Bugger off”
RATING: 4.5/5
Before there was Dizraeli, there was…Tom Bombadeal. Is it a coincidence that both artists are connected to the hip-hop scene in Brighton or evidence that the leylines of power radiating through the English landscape plug into a major socket round those parts and are now giving rise to a burgeoning folk hop massive? Whichever it is, let this LP serve as a warning of what comes of having a toot on a summer’s day in the vicinity of the Long Man Of Wilmington or, as the missus put it, “this is weird music - sounds like it’s from that Wicker Man film.” Inevitably, given that Brighton and folk music are involved, ‘folk-punk’ bores the Levellers make an appearance (well, their fiddle player Steven Boakes does) though (despite expectations) this doesn’t spoil the LP. Neither does the fact that Bombadeal (a.k.a. Tom Caruana aided and abetted by a motley but equally talented crew including Dizraeli and Elemental) raids wholesale the more acid-fuelled moments from Tolkien’s epic Lord Of The Rings and specifically the character Tom Bombadil – a fat, jolly sort given to talking utter bollocks in rhyme which – as coincidence (again!) would have it - makes him perfect rapper material. In any case, despite all the ‘green man’ antics, the fol-de-rol-ery of this album has its tongue stuffed firmly into its apple-rosy cheek.…LISTEN/ READ THE REST AT MONKEYBOXING.COM
