Quireboys album review  St Cecilia and the Gypsy Soul

LGA album reviewer, Paul Wood, lends an ears to the latest offering  by The Quireboys – a four CD album set entitled “St Cecilia and the Gypsy Soul”.

Quireboys- album review St Cecilia and the Gypsy Soul

“St Cecilia” is the third album released by The Quireboys over the last three years, following on from the rather excellent “Beautiful Curse” and last year’s multi-disc set “Black-Eyed Sons”.

“St Cecilia” is packaged as a 4 disc set, in addition to the 10 song new album you also get a reissue of their hard to find (but well received) “Halfpenny Dancer” album from 2009 and a 2 disc “Halfpenny Dancer Live” set .

Quireboys album review St Cecilia and the Gypsy Soul

Recorded over one week in Sweden the four piece core Quireboys band (Spike, Guy Griffin, Paul Guerin and Keith Weir) are joined by Bonafide’s Martin Ekelund who acted as co-producer/mixer as well as adding additional instruments to the core sound of the band.

“Gracie B” is the albums opening track – a strong swamp rock blues boogie that will appear to the bands heavier fans. It’s been separately released as an EP download and here’s a link to the official video by HRH TV:

ALBUM REVIEW:  ST CECILIA AND THE GYPSY SOUL – QUIREBOYS

“Land of My Father” follows the opening track and is a heavy acoustic guitar singalong number with a very catchy chorus. “St Cecilia” is the album’s title track and is more of a rocker with another strong chorus from the band.

The temp drops again with “The Promise” – a low key ballad with strings (cello) and a Spanish style guitar part.

Quireboys album review St Cecilia and the Gypsy Soul

Guy Griffin takes a rare (and possibly first ever) vocal lead on “Can’t Hide It Anymore” and a rather good job he makes of it too – the song/vocals remind me of an Oasis style acoustic number.  “Out Of Your head” has Spike back on vocals and is an uptempo rocker with a good riff and tasty slide guitar.

“Adaline” kicks in with a jangly guitar line and has a simple girl’s name singalong chorus that you just have to love.

The album closes with “Why Did It Take So Long” – just Spike on breathlesss vocals, Keith Weir on keyboards and a drum machine – it brings the album to an excellent .close .

The album’s ten tracks clock in at around 35 minutes and it’s just the right length to make you want to play it again straightaway. It’s potentially the best of their three recent releases and as a 4 disc set available on the internet for around £19 it is excellent value and highly recommended.

Here’s a live clip from the band’s Youtube site of an acoustic version of “Devil Of A Man” which appears on the “Halfpenny Dancer” studio and live CDs.

and “Hates To Please” which originally appeared on the band’s second album (Bittersweet and Twisted”) but which was then dusted off and given an acoustic treatment on “Halfpenny Dancer”

Going from strength and strength and regularly gigging again in the UK – sometimes with a full rock’n’roll set and sometimes with what Spike describes as an “acoustic rock’n’roll” set, they always put on a great show. Catch them if you can.

Main album track list

1. Gracie B.
2. Land Of My Father.
3. St Cecilia.
4. The Promise.
5. Can’t Hide It Anymore.
6. Out Of Your Mind.
7. The Hurting Kind.
8. Adaline.
9. The Best Are Not Forgotten.
10. Why Did it Take So Long.

Blast from the past

Here’s a rather grainy version of the official video for “There She Goes Again” with the first album line up of the band from 1990: