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Robb Johnson
Gentle Men
(Irregular Records)
4 Stars
An updated version of folk singer-songwriter Robb Johnson's original 1997 song cycle, Gentle Men is a two-album family history of his two grandfathers' experiences of the first world war.
With Roy Bailey, Jenny Carr, Barb Jungr, Jude Abbott and John Forrester contributing, the record's scope reminded me of the best of Graham Swift's fiction.
The first disc concerns the years 1893-1919, when the patriotism of the war's early days - "The bands played Rule Britannia in every town in Kent" - quickly gives way to the horror of the battlefield. The attack whistles on And Then The Trumpet Sounded send a shiver down the spine.
Life after war is the focus of the second CD and special mention needs to go to Bailey for his incredible performance of The Whistle, a moving rumination on the dying of the light.
Poignant, funny, sad and angry, Gentle Men is a superb slice of social history.
Ian Sinclair
