Strike The Colours

Jenny Reeve is a well-kent face in Scottish indie circles, having worked with Idlewild, Malcolm Middleton and The Reindeer Section in the past. This second album from her current project is a subtle and considered affair, a collection of simple but effective pop tunes flecked through with folk and displaying assured songwriting prowess. Reeve’s breathy voice is as emotive as ever on the plaintive ‘If I Don’t Belong’ and spine-tingling opener ‘Cold Hands’, but her bands are actually at their best when they crank it up a notch, evinced by the tumbling climax of ‘Safety in Numbers’. Quality stuff. - Doug Johnstone (4/5)

There’s a definite air of familiarity about this second release from Strike The Colours, and that’s certainly not a criticism. It isn’t even anything to do with the fact that singer/songwriter Jenny Reeve was the featured female on Snow Patrol’s ‘Eyes Open’. It’s simply that the well-crafted song writing and finely judged musicianship on display here lend an immediate ease to the way in which this album weaves itself into your consciousness. Seven Roads delivers on the promise of previous demo-ish EP The Face That Sunk A Thousand Ships with a refined reflective set that captivates in its own largely subdued way.

Jenny Reeve is the figure head for this folk collective, but the ‘band’ conceals talent from members of Snow Patrol, Idlewild and Arab Strap amongst others (she’s also played/sung with the latter two in the past). In fact, it’s as if the members of Scottish indie supergroup The Reindeer Section has been thrown up into the air, and this time Ms. Reeve landed on top. As you might imagine, it’s not a permanent configuration – but there’s no inkling of a lack of commitment or the oft experienced lazy dalliances of a ’side project’. Their back history yields an easy atmosphere of caring collaboration – enhanced by the fact that the whole album was laid down in one continuous two week block; hence retaining a homogeneity of spirit and sense of place. It’s as though a group of friends really have been laid up in the back room of some proverbial Celtic inn just striking up the music on an autumnal evening. However, whilst their influences may extend back to traditional folk, and the previous sentence implies a more rootsy feel, this is a modern sounding album that careens between urban folk and acoustic pop – all the while the delicate unplugged loveliness of its attractive sheen sheltering more sombre imagery just beneath the surface. Credit is due to Paul Savage as producer (Franz Ferdinand, Mogwai, Brakes, The Twilight Sad) for managing the compact recording schedule and capturing the pin-sharp sound.

Reeve’s voice is ambiguously placed – only when the pace drops is there a slight hint of the Scotch in her whispery, though often still forceful, delivery. Most times it could be anything from Scandinavian windswept to Southern belle. Comparisons might be drawn with a less croaky Julia Stone. Aside from those vocals, her contributions on violin are haunting, delicate additions that are perfectly placed to complement each song and lace it with an extra element of melancholy. Piano is also sparingly and effectively used – the clarity of the mix enabling each individual additional instrument to gracefully make its mark. The combination of superficial attractiveness and often brooding, more complex, message recalls early 10,000 Maniacs (The Wishing Chair) and their version of folk with a face-lift. Like Natalie Merchant, Reeve frequently articulates the darker personal heart of this album: even alongside the skipping rhythms of single ‘Breathing Exercise’: “I don’t want to be a saint … I’ve taken all the drink and drugs I could to calm me down”. ‘If I Don’t Belong’ is as starkly matter of fact in discussing death as ghoulish old Scots ballad ‘The Twa Corbies’, and there is heartache a-plenty: the usual over-used three little words being “strung together” “with a look of distrust instead of love” in ‘Cold Hands’.

Musically, amidst the polish there’s still a place for more angular sounds from fiddle and occasionally, as on ‘Cat’, abstract trumpet when needing to heighten an emotional climax. ‘Train Of Thought’ would be my highlight – with simply the most memorable melody, and being one of several songs that deals with travel and its resultant paradoxical emphasis of a sense of belonging to person or place. Also notable for wonderfully capturing the languid torpor of its slow flowing titular element is final track ‘Rivers’. As Reeve states at one point: “I told you I’d be your question mark”. There’s enough to ponder on, engage with and enjoy for some time here, and the real question is: how successful will this album be? I know what I think it deserves. - Andrew Dowdall

Album: Seven Roads
Artist: Strike the Colours
Label: Deadlight Records
Release date: 28th September 2009

I wrote a mental letter recently. It read something I like this:

Dear Strike the Colours,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are a Scottish folk band, yes? Well then… what the fuck have you got to be so happy about?
Love Matthew

Allow me to remove all rhetoric from that second question with a simple answer: the glorious listen that is Seven Roads. With this, the band’s second album, they have created as tender and lovely a folk record as you are likely to hear this year.

The instrumentation carries an extremely intimate simplicity, evoking images of warm nights by the fire with a hot mug of tea. This is especially evident on album highlight “If I Don’t Belong”, a sparse acoustic song so unbelievably pretty I can see it playing out an episode of One Tree Hill someday soon.

The true highlight of Seven Roads, however, is singer Jenny Reeve. Her beautiful vocals – delivered, as they are, in her own Glaswegian accent – add a feeling of honesty distinctly lacking in so much modern folk. Reeve’s vocals bring to mind those of Adele Bethel (of Sons & Daughters), though she sounds less like she wants to stab you repeatedly in the face and more like she wants to give us all a nice hug. This, coupled with her traditionally bleak – yet subtly hopeful – lyrics, keeps you hanging on every word, desperate to catch a whispered revelation.

If you heed my advice and walk along any one of these Seven Roads (see what we did there?), I promise that you too will be sucked in. And when you do, prepare to discover what I can only describe as one of the most charming, emotive and downright beautiful folk records of the year.

Our Verdict:
????? - Matthew Healy

Click To View the Fullsize Image/s

Scottish super-group of sorts Strike The Colours are set to release their new album 'Seven Roads' on September 28th.

Strike The Colours may be a new group but they contain some very familiar faces. Lead singer Jenny Reeve has appeared on some of the finest music to emerge from Scotland in recent times, working with Arab Strap and Malcolm Middleton.

Forming a new group to express her own singular talents, Jenny Reeve has assembled a stellar cast of musicians. Strike The Colours contain members of Idlewild and backing musicians from the career of Alistair Roberts and Emma Pollock.

Debut album 'The Face That Sunk A Thousand Ships' showed a deft line in self-deprecating indie folk, and Strike The Colours now seem ready to unleash a follow up.

'Seven Roads' betrays the influence of legendary folkies such as Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny and Anne Briggs but has a very individual character.

“The last album had its own personal theme, but was created in bursts of writing and recording,” says Reeve. “This process was more succinct and we recorded it during one period of time. Lyrically and stylistically, it feels like there is real continuity and clarity with ‘Seven Roads’.”

Recorded in Chem19 the album will be preceded by the group's new single 'Breathing Exercise'. Eagle eyed ClashMusic readers should already be familiar with the track. The video to 'Breathing Exercise' premiered right here on this site, to recap click HERE!

To coincide with the release of the album Strike The Colours have confirmed a number of new tour dates. Taking to the road with Glasgow pals Zoey Van Goey the group are set to tour the nation bringing their intimate folk strains to a venue near you. - Clash Magazine

WHOEVER writes the history of noughties' Scottish music should spare a footnote for Jenny Reeve. Seven Roads might be her first full Strike The Colours album following lovely six-tracker The Face That Sunk A Thousand Ships two years ago, but she's been mixing in high musical circles for some time. She served a long apprenticeship with the likes of Malcolm Middleton, Arab Strap, Idlewild and previous band Eva before getting down to her current sweet business. Pitched somewhere between The Fence Collective and Sons And Daughters, this latest addition to the dark Celtic folk-pop canon is a captivating and sometimes exceptional serving of autumnal melancholy.

Reeve's soft poignant voice rings through songs that range from bittersweet laments such as Cold Hands and If I Don't Belong to boundless whirls like Cat and The Things I Can't Explain.

For those that have known drunken heartbreak and filthy joy, it will have you lighting candles and reopening old diaries as the nights draw in. - Steven Vass

STRIKE THE COLOURS / ZOEY VAN GOEY / BROTHER LOUIS COLLECTIVE
STEREO, GLASGOW

BY ELAINE LIDDLE • OCT 22ND, 2009 • CATEGORY: GIGS
“IAN, D’YOU THINK YOU COULD TURN THE AUDIENCE DOWN A BIT?” STRIKE THE COLOURS’ GUITARIST DAVEY MCAULAY ASKS MIDWAY THROUGH THEIR SET.
SLIGHTLY THREATENING REBUKES ASIDE, JENNY REEVES AND HER BAND SEEM QUIETLY THRILLED THAT THE PLACE IS PACKED TO SEE WHAT THEY’VE COME UP WITH FOR ALBUM NUMBER TWO, SEVEN ROADS.

THE CROWD IS WARMED UP NICELY BY A STRIPPED-BACK PERFORMANCE FROM (SOME OF) BROTHER LOUIS COLLECTIVE AND A CHEERFUL ZOEY VAN GOEY (DRUMMER/SINGER MATT BRENNAN IS VERY EXCITED TO HAVE A FRIEND FROM HIS CANADIAN HOMETOWN IN THE AUDIENCE: “NO ONE USUALLY BELIEVES ME THAT WE HAVE A STATUE OF ROBERT BURNS BUT NOW I HAVE SOMEONE TO CONFIRM IT!”).

REEVES IS OF COURSE WELL-KNOWN TO SCOTTISH AUDIENCE THROUGH HER INPUT TO THE LIKES OF THE REINDEER SECTION AND ARAB STRAP AMONG MANY, AND IN MALCOLM MIDDLETON’S TOURING BAND FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS.
BUT WITH STRIKE THE COLOURS, SHE’S THE BOSS – AND THIS SHOWCASE PROVES HOW IMPRESSIVE A MUSICIAN AND SONGWRITER SHE IS IN HER OWN RIGHT.
THEY START OUT WITH A GENTLE SONG, ‘COLD HANDS’, WHEN REEVES IS JOINED ON VOCALS BY CRAIG B (YOU KNOW, HIM FAE AEREOGRAMME).
FROM THERE THEY VEER FROM DREAMY MELODIES TO COUNTRY-ESQUE GUITARS AND SOMETIMES, QUITE UNEXPECTEDLY BUILDING UP BLASTS OF NOISE.

MANY OF THE TUNES ARE TINGED WITH A WISTFUL SADNESS, PICKED OUT BY
REEVES’ HEART-RENDING VIOLIN MELODIES AND SOFT VOICE.
IT’S HAUNTINGLY PRETTY, NEVER MORE SO THAN ON THE LAST TUNE TONIGHT,
ALBUM CLOSER ‘RIVERS’. SO QUIET IN BACK – THIS BAND DESERVES YOUR
ATTENTION. - Elaine Liddle

STRIKE THE COLOURS Stereo, Glasgow, Friday 2nd October
Fresh from playing live on BBC6 Music, this Glasgow band were home to entertain fans in more intimate surroundings.

The band's second album Seven Roads has a folk-inspired sound with a dark edge to it and on stage Jenny Reeve's delicate voice soars over gentle melodies on the soul-bearing If I Don't Belong, and the pretty violins of Breathing Exercise.

Aereogramme's Craig B joined the band on stage to help out on harmonies on opening song Cold Hands and closing lullaby Rivers.

Reeve jokes that her music is "slightly depressing" but that didn't bother her audience.

- Andy Robertson