Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
In the end it doesn’t matter where you are from, that really is not the point as you can be born in one city and then move the next day. What it comes down to is where you have felt comfortable in your life and what you achieve whilst you live there and what you leave behind. The three men that make up the folk band Gary Maginnis & The Like certainly have that left the very best part of them in the North-West of England whilst retaining that singular splendour of Belfast very much in their hearts and in their ability to tell a story, nowhere is this more exemplified by their new release of Ghost Town Blues.
The constant refrain of songs that have the feel of stories, family tales told round an open fire and filled with joyful melancholy and bitter longing are prevalent throughout the seven tracks on offer to the listener. This though isn’t the sound of the depressed or browbeaten reflecting on a hard-done by life, this is just reality, the partaking of accounts that happen to be part of a person’s many chapters of existence, no recrimination, just pleasing music filled with the air of humanity.
The three men capture through their poetic like lyrics, so poetic that some of the greats of the genre would be hard pressed to come up with a sonnet that dealt with the same angst in the same way, the hardship, the small acts that made every day living in Belfast something, if not to be proud of, then certainly to relate and hope for a measure of understanding.
Gary Maginnis, Declan Sands and Shane Sweeney give every tale possible and give a sharp look at life in the northern part of Ireland on some great songs such as Hometown Boy, Blood, I’m A Son and the excellent Faces & Names. Some people are born to be able to relate a tale, to make their family history against the backdrop of events in their countries history more tangible and honest. Ghost Town Blues by Gary Maginnis & The Like is one such album, one that should not be listened to alone as it requires the skill of many to be able to understand, digest and make peace with.
Ian D. Hall