Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It may seem a strange affair to consider, perhaps even rum in some music lover’s eyes, but not every rock/R&B fan likes Led Zeppelin. It seems to be a permanent question that hangs on the mouths of the pop fan like a drip feed tube giving nutrients to a coma patient, you like rock, then you must like Led Zeppelin. Whilst the Midland’s band might not be everybody’s personal liking, there is a young band who has climbed the slippery slope out of Leeds and who tickles the taste buds of musical sincerity with their debut E.P. Cottonwoolf.
The band and the name are intertwined, what is great within the band, is magnified within the six songs on offer and through the tracks that have more than a passing feel to Led Zeppelin’s work, it is delivered with a natural authenticity and without some of the pretention that comes across from the Midland’s rocker’s work.
From the stirrings of fledgling musical output from Grant K. Fennell, Andy Calder, Sim Walker, Jacob Maskell-Key and Lewis Husbands come six songs in which to agitate the brain cells and get them working on something new and exciting. The sound of a depth of character that has been seemingly honed in and around the back streets and terraced houses that run deep in the Leeds area, that comes from out of the pubs and back room clubs of all areas towards Bradford and Huddersfield and east towards Hull, it is the grouping of songs that typify a life beyond the Westminster Empire and a true perspective of the grit that is needed to survive and flourish beyond the home counties and the garden of Kent.
Tracks such as Coming Up Roses, On Dreaming and the final destructive lyrical power that resides in The Power and Owning A House are enough to make Cottonwoolf’s self-titled debut one in which to place something special against, the spirit of hope in what can be considered at times, a country without hope and certainly suffering from a lack of heroes with conviction.
Music debuts are there for a reason, they are there to remind us that we all start somewhere with a puddle full of hope, it is how we search to enlarge that puddle and give safe passage to others on our tiny ocean is what matters. A stunning debut, a cracking set of songs!
Ian D. Hall
Cottonwoolf perform as part of Strings and Things on Sunday 2nd November at Studio 2, Parr Street, Liverpool.