There’s Campbell’s Condensed Tomato Soup and there’s the Rag N Bone Man. Stick either of them in the microwave for five minutes and you are bound to start a fire and get covered in the red stuff. As you might have guessed, I like a food metaphor as much as the Rag N Bone Man likes the no-fi full on one axe murderer band approach to both songwriting and performance.
There’s anger in his words and the blues in his heart as he bangs crashes through these eight visceral songs that burn with the kind of passion rarely seen in the vicinity of Glasgow. Don’t be expecting much of a variation in presentation either as full on is the only way to go here with each and every distorted word having a jagged edge to keep those gutters flowing with the blood of good men and bad with the brutal “Sicko” is pretty much the nadir and zenith of the Rag N Bone Man’s soul baring stabathon.
The Rag N Bone Man tells it like it is. Make no mistake about that and, despite the generally pitiful sound quality, he gets his message across.