Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The view from Under A Bloodshot Moon can often be more enlightening than that which illuminates brightly or even that which surprises in a Blue Moon serenade. It is the colour of reveal and rebellion, the phase of Earth’s satellite that conjures up images of war, of revolution, and sometimes, the warning of pleasure taken too seriously, and when that image is focused upon the desire to be taken in by the art on show is overwhelming and full of promise and delivery.
Triumph is often captured within the bloodshot moon, the sense of drama being more than equal to a starless night, and so that triumph, that achievement is heartily welcomed in the Welsh folk-rock wonders that is Rusty Shackle, and their brand-new recording, the superb and influential Under A Bloodshot Moon.
It is the emotional sorcery, the magic felt as the disturbed air plays with chemistry and allusion that sees this particular album reach a new height of belief and groove, and as tracks such as the opener The Devil’s Pulpit, Song Of The Siren, Lost In Tokyo, The Stranger, the excellent Gallows Song, the superb Ghost, and the finale of Coming Home all delve into the reflection of the blood moon, so the players themselves seem to take on a quality of the ethereal, the gold dust that is showered upon the courageous as they explore and push their souls towards the stars.
For Baz Barwick, George Barrell, Liam Collins, Ryan Williams, and Scott McKeon, Under A Bloodshot Moon is temptation made gloriously real, it is the antithesis of the old Wiltshire legend of the Moonrakers, those that scrape at the water as they believe the moon has fallen in, and their efforts are all in vein; instead Rusty Shackle dive deep and find themselves in the sky surrounded by the vision of entity, the truth of the moon in its place and the sense of time and space it affords…by doing so they illuminate the listener below and give themselves to the timeless and the beauty of that romantic beast above us.
A genuine class recording by the band, their finest album yet.
Rusty Shackle release Under A Bloodshot Moon on August 19th.
Ian D. Hall