aaamusic | On 31, Jan 2011

‘These Barren Years’ is a single by a six-piece band led by Louis Abbott, singing & guitars, who is the lynch pin and whose smooth powerful, yet melancholy voice is aided by a foot-stomping rhythm that carries the sing-a-long chorus headlong into a wave of words so true that the audience is carried into its reality.

Without trying to sound prejudiced, his Scottish twang, that is pushed to the fore unashamedly, somehow lends the song a certain Danny Boyle dinginess to the proceedings, and it is hard not to link his incessant pessimistic binding phrase “”Grow old with me and we’ll share the pitfalls…” with the haunting negativity that other Scottish singer, Malcolm Middleton, layers his songs with.

However, throughout the schoolboy reality that is lent no nostalgia here, such that one can picture blue-knee’d boys and giggling girls joking for attention and playing the fool, the romanticism that runs through the single as a whole balances lines like “how long will this last, these barren years” to create an equilibrium that leaves the listener unsure as to whether to feel close to tears or warm with the joy and admiration of human resilience.

Following a strong tour of Scotland in 2010 and a concert at the Lexington on September 15, attended by the great and the good of the music business, and having listened to this single there is no doubt that Admiral Fallow will have a deservedly successful new year with album ‘Boots met my face’ being released in the UK coupled with a tour.

Author: Guy Waddinton