The starkly-named Twelve is the new album from The Singing Loins. Originally forming in 1990 as a trash-folk duo – the strap-line being “authentic raw folk from the Medway delta”- comprising Chris Broderick and Arf Allen they initially recorded for Billy Childish’s Hangman label before linking up with Damaged Goods. After packing it in around 1999 the pair left a significant legacy enshrined on The Complete And Utter Singing Loins double CD collection.
Regrouping half a decade later they recruited Rob Shepherd to bring mandolin and banjo to the mix. Sadly Chris Broderick died in 2022 but not before encouraging Arf and Rob to carry on. Later that year they would get together with Childish at Jim Riley’s Ranscombe Studios to record The Fighting Temeraire as a final tribute with Richard Moore guesting on fiddle and Jim adding harmonica. It was most fitting; along with the title track came ‘Song Of The Medway’, ‘The Jutland Sea’, ‘ The Rochester Recruiting Sergeant’, a cover of Dylan’s ‘The Walls Of Redwing’, and the perennial ‘I Don’t Like The Man That I Am’.
Following this they would gradually regroup as a five-piece; Richard Moore joined up, as did Arf’s son Oli, and then Chris Grenfell. As Rob explains:
“ (Twelve is) basically the twelve songs we enjoy playing the most with the current lineup. Since Brod passed away Arf and me have done few nights of Loins songs celebrating the songs we all wrote together, so that started the selection process. Oli joined us on percussion and then Rich, who Billy introduced to us, joined on violin. Then Chris came along to play the drums, so Oli switched to guitar. Through all that we were refining the set, and we got to the point where we felt that we’d sort of worked out how to do this; respecting and celebrating our past, without coming on like a tribute band to ourselves. So it made sense to make the album – just to reflect where we’d arrived at. We went into Jim’s studio, bashed them all out live in a couple of hours – no overdubs, no fussing over mistakes – just singing and playing the songs as if it was a gig.”
Starting with the first-ever Loins song ‘Hauling In The Slack’, there’s then favourites like ‘House In The Wood’ and ‘Big Wheel’, and songs of Kent in ‘The Topless Twins of Allhallows-on-Sea’ and ‘God Bless the Whores of Rochester’. Inevitably ‘I Don’t Like The Man That I Am’ comes round again but it’s all fine, and when you hear the ensemble playing on something like ‘The Ghost Of Old Rose’ it’s heart-warming.
This weekend there are a couple of launch gigs. On Friday at Three Sheets To The Wind in Rochester, and on Saturday at The Betsey Trotwood in London. After that they head off for a quartet of gigs in Serbia.
Twelve is released this Friday by Damaged Goods.
Bucketfull Of Brains 