Initially launched on Merry Hell Music, Could 2023
Accessible on 2 x CD and obtain

A primary ever album evaluation in Louder Than Battle for Wigan’s best-kept secret: the good folk-rock outfit Merry Hell, who launched a career-spanning 2CD retrospective compilation that includes 28 of their hottest anthems and ballads taken from the six albums they’ve launched so far since 2011.

Merry Hell are that almost all enviable of propositions: an entertaining 8-piece folks rock ensemble, who simply maintain getting greater and higher at what they do. Perennial pageant favourites for the most effective a part of the final 10 years and counting, at the moment they’ve been enjoying to among their largest crowds, and ever extra appreciative and adoring audiences, just by advantage of their sheer onerous graft and ‘by no means say die’ constructive outlook.

They’ve transcended and overcome the entire current making an attempt and testing obstacles (Covid pandemic, Brexit, the devastation wreaked upon the leisure, hospitality, artwork, music and tradition industries as a consequence, even key band members departing for pastures new) to emerge nonetheless victorious and – dare I even say it – defiantly valiant within the face of such adversity. And their music is successfully the right soundtrack to conquering all of those battles.

The band have historical past – and certainly infamy – on their aspect too. They originally shaped in Wigan, Lancashire, from the ashes of the regionally feted however sadly underachieving punk-folk troubadours The Tansads: an outfit who, regardless of their loyal cult following and creditable standing on the – then – ‘crusty’ pageant scene of the early Nineteen Nineties (they had been kindred spirits to the Levellers and maybe shared among the latter’s socialist sensibilities), by no means actually crossed over into the indie mainstream and had been thus endlessly to stay on the margins, regardless of some spectacular data which had been the equal of among the extra celebrated agit-pop/indie-folk names (Chumbawamba as an example).

Numerous line-up modifications later, The Tansads dissolved across the flip of the 2000s; the three brothers who made up the core of the band, John, Bob and Andrew Kettle, ultimately regrouping and starting anew below the identify Merry Hell (taken from an outdated Tansads music known as ‘Separate Souls’), releasing a trio of acclaimed albums on small Derbyshire label Mrs Casey’s Information earlier than issuing all subsequent recordings below their very own Merry Hell Music imprint.

With their new expanded eight-piece line up additionally that includes John Kettle’s married accomplice (and acclaimed folks artist in her personal proper) Virginia, the band slowly however certainly gained an more and more noticeable presence on the tour entrance, enjoying festivals and small gigs..incomes themselves a status for being one of many hardest working and most gratifying stay acts within the nation.

Up to now, Merry Hell have issued six studio albums between 2011 and 2020, all of them just about important listening, together with their final launch ‘Emergency Lullabies’ which was accomplished throughout lockdown when the entire band had been all bodily separated from each other, and this well timed compilation – with 28 tracks unfold out throughout 2CDs – is an indispensible reminder of the sheer melodic – and lyrical – brilliance of the band on the peak of their powers.

Compiled with assist from their ever-growing legions of followers: ostensibly lots of the hottest and greatest cherished stay cuts in addition to these extra reflective and touching moments, it’s notable how the gathering just isn’t a lot a easy chronological run via of the ‘biggest hits’ and album tracks, however sequenced extra like in step with what the typical Merry Hell stay present is like: often kicking off with a rabble-rousing crowd-friendly belter or two earlier than we’re then handled to the completely different colors and shades of their extra considerate and emotionally weighty (however by no means miserable) materials, earlier than upping the ante as soon as once more with a pair extra rapturously upbeat rockers (or certainly swayers).

There’s a sense of range and eclectism: some are solo compositions, others are group efforts, due in no small half to the songwriting being invariably break up throughout completely different band members.

Many of those excellent numbers totally warrant massed arms-in-the-air singalongs. The opener of this assortment: ‘Drunken Serenade’ (additionally, aptly sufficient, the primary music which opens their very first album) is as fantastic a press release of intent you’re more likely to get. As a measure of how evergreen this music is, it’s revisited in direction of the tip of the second disc in a unique stay incarnation.

‘Bury Me Bare’, a joyful rumination on curbing one’s pointless materialism (“bury me bare / I need to exit the way in which I got here in”), is – at the moment – THE greatest band-and-audience sing-cum-sway-along that anybody will expertise, and every tour the massed crowd participation that this quantity initiates swells ever better and extra delirious!

There’s a gleeful grittiness in Andrew Kettle’s highly effective vocal supply (you possibly can virtually lower with a knife the burr of his thick Wigan accent all through) on these gloriously uplifting tunes which is so neatly complemented and counterbalanced by co-vocalist Virginia Kettle’s alternately sassy and angelic tones. The distinction is most obvious on the entire numbers the place her vocal takes centre stage, shorn of the playful Clever Dodger-esque interactions that the youngest Kettle brother excels at so endearingly.

‘Violet’ is a selected spotlight – Virginia adopting her utmost greatest ‘Femme Dysfunctionale’ persona by way of an amusingly self-deprecating narrative set in opposition to a showtune backdrop. Regardless of the eventualities that she finds herself in relating to her makes an attempt at attracting potential suitors of the alternative intercourse, her major repay would look like: ‘don’t waste your time with me/ I’m solely going to allow you to down!’. It’s virtually Vaudevillian and no much less gratifying for that.

Elsewhere, the temper shifts to fantastically unadorned and contemplative numbers like ‘No Place Like Tomorrow’, Virginia stealing the present with a lyric that tugs at one’s heartstrings: ‘Right here’s a music to the weary, the fractured, the damaged / Hope for the silly, a phrase to the smart / A brand new day is coming, so maintain your eyes open / Don’t shut out the sunshine of the solar on the rise.’ This model is taken from the album of ‘stay’ and ‘stripped down’ re-recordings ‘Anthems To The Wind’, the unique incarnation appeared on 2015’s ‘Ghost In Our Home And Different Tales’ album with the lead vocal as an alternative sung fantastically by Andrew.

Provided that this world is so immeasurably fucked up and, on the face of it, seemingly bereft of any form of humanity or compassion within the palms of those who govern it, the phrases right here supply real solace, redemption and in the end a way of peace and hope for many who – like myself – have usually been on the verge of simply giving up the combat within the face of such insurmountable adversity and distress throughout us.

Maybe the closest relative is ‘Lean On Me, Love’, one in all Merry Hell’s earliest and most enduringly fashionable (and touching) tunes. First featured on their debut ‘Blink…And You’ll Miss It’ album from 2011 – albeit as an uptempo ballad set to a rock association, it was later rerecorded at half the tempo, stripped down to only Andrew’s lone vocal to start with.

One of these songs whose sentiments are shared by many individuals who search solidarity and a shoulder to cry on throughout troubled instances of hardship, disaster, or uncertainty, it’s no exaggeration to say that when it’s carried out stay, its sheer emotional gravitas brings a lump to the throat, myself included (I’ve truly witnessed individuals in tears at how genuinely affecting this music is). It’s an actual showstopping second that has few equals.

There are various different such moments like these inside this magnificent assortment of stirring, morale-boosting, virtually soulful anthems and ballads. Certainly, if folk-rock could possibly be additionally thought-about ‘soulful’ in addition to rousing, then Merry Hell are fairly probably one in all its best purveyors! This music actually does uplift the soul and thoughts and in the end induce an enormous euphoric grin on one’s face.

The uptempo tunes right here (and there are lots of) are Merry Hell’s inventory in commerce. All of them are faultless to a tee, exceptionally properly carried out and assured to incite mass shindigs wherever you might care to take them. I child you not!

I’m solely barely shocked on the omission of what I think about to be one in all their quintessential hoedowns from this compilation: ‘Summer time Is A-Comin’ (from the ‘Ghost In Our Home…’ album). A extra excellent romp across the pageant perimeter with bells and whistles, tambours and klaxons you’ll be onerous pushed to search out wherever else. It’s merely joyously upbeat and even makes yours really need to make a beeline for the closest subject, straw boater on bonce, and gleefully twirl-dance with just a few scarecrows in ecstasy (word that I wrote ‘in’ and never ‘on’).

Another stunning absentee is the blistering ‘The Battle Between Ourselves’ from the primary album – a stay favorite to today, and a propulsive rocker that actually articulates via its sheer driving urgency the stark and prosaic message conveyed throughout the lyric: ‘why can’t we simply all flipping properly get alongside ?’ (minus the profanity after all) with a chorus so easy, addictive and highly effective [‘Stop The War! Stop The War! Stop The War …. Between Ourselves’!) it should be taught at nursery school music classes!

Obviously, not everything of worth can be included in its entirety on this 2CD collection, so I guess their absence is more than compensated by the quality of rallying fist-pumpers like ‘Come On England’ – (‘Raise your tea cups and glasses, you bold lads and lasses / and drink to the spirit that will never lie down!’)  a people’s anthem of national pride which should deservedly be adopted instead of the turgid dirge that passes for the real thing, or indeed any of the negatively jingoistic chants that border on the plain xenophobic, and ‘Loving The Skin You’re In’ (whose lyric – about embracing your identity – is self explanatory, really)

‘We Are Different, We Are One’ is a broadening of the sentiments explored on ‘Loving The Skin’ but extolling the virtues of what makes us proud to be what we are as a nation and society, and to celebrate this diversity if only to prevail over the insular small-mindedness, bigotry and hatred that others try to instill among us.

Ditto the powerful Virginia-penned rebuke to political corruption in all its ugly guises and shapes that is ‘Stand Down’, and also ‘Rage Like Thunder’ – an Andrew / Virginia-duetting lyrical cluster-bomb dedicated to those whom, as youngsters, possessed fire and passion to challenge social injustices, only to then mellow out into apathy later in adult life, preferring to suppress their inner anger – which tears along at an appropriately frantic pace.

When they’re not being openly socially-conscious (but – crucially – never preachy or proselytising), they can be extremely adept at coming up with moments to lighten the mood: witness the amusingly droll ‘Let’s Not Have A Morning After (Until We’ve Had A Night Before)’, the aforementioned earworm ‘Bury Me Naked’, and ‘The Baker’s Daughter’ (cue the sight of massed bobbing up and down, arms aloft, from the festival crowds singing along to the refrain “she rises, she rises / when the world is still in bed / she rises, she rises / and brings us all our daily bread”!).

Elsewhere, the wholly acapella ‘Coming Home Song’ – penned, as are many other similarly affecting numbers, by middle brother Bob Kettle – is a hugely moving and empathetic declaration of humanitarianism expressing a desire for togetherness and unity for all of whom have been sidelined, displaced and persecuted. It offers comfort and solace to each and every one of those marginalised within society and brilliantly showcases the solo vocal talents of each band member – who sing a verse apiece – to stunning effect.

‘When We Meet Again’ is perhaps the most remarkable track here, by virtue of the fact that it was recorded entirely remotely, during the second (2021) lockdown, and features more than 300 voices in unison – the extra contributors all being fans forming part of the aptly named ‘Social Isolation Choir’. Listening to the climaxing chorus at the end where the massed ranks all come together as one really stirs the emotions like nothing else.

There are just too many other treats in the box to touch upon them all, suffice to say that Merry Hell are without dispute one of the finest – and most life-affirmingly enjoyable – live bands you are ever likely to see on any circuit (not just folk) and for anybody who has not previously come across their music, this is an ideal way to start dipping in, before it is recommended that all of their past album releases should be sought.

Such is their rapid ascension towards the upper echelons of the folk-rock live scene over the last decade it was not surprising to discover that this retrospective compilation made the top 40 of the official folk charts not just once, but twice (it re-entered just recently), since it was originally released in late spring 2023. This is testament to all of the new fans – young and old – that they have attracted through their recent exuberant live appearances at almost every festival you can mention – whatever the weather.

The heavens may not always be quite so forgiving over humble Wigan, Lancashire, at the best of times, but, as far as Merry Hell are concerned, that sun is always there shining brightly inside one’s hearts and minds! And thousands of fans enraptured by their shows and songs will be in full agreement with that.

File Under: “Feel-Good Folk-Rock From UK’s Undisputed Pie Capital”!

All words by Martin Gray.
Further articles by Martin can be found here 

For more on Merry Hell, check out their social media page.

Purchase Let The Music Speak For Itself  HERE.

For the band website and also other Merry Hell albums and merchandise, click here

Merry Hell are also playing live – again! – during September to November – list of dates here.