Thirty Pounds Of Bone – ‘The Homesick Children Of Migrant Mothers’ (Drift) Released 27/11/06

Unless you drift off to sleep every night to CD compilation like, ‘The Sounds of Whales Mating in the South Pacific’ it’s unlikely you buy CDs that are inspired by the sea. Well, that could all change with ‘Thirty Pounds Of Bone’s’ debut album, ‘The Homesick Children Of Migrant Mothers’. One glance at the modest looking trawler caught in choppy seas on the album sleeve is enough to stir nostalgic memories of salty sea air and the sounds of a seagull gluttonising your Grandmas egg and cress sandwich when she’s dozed off.

So, why all this coastal fascination? Well besides being based in Devon Thirty Pounds Of Bone’s singer and founding member Johny Lamb has a life long obsession with folk music. Throw both of these influences and a hint of arson into the equation and you’ve got the album opener ‘When She Goes Up’ which is a twisted story about setting your girlfriend on fire. If the lyrics, “My matches wouldn’t let me down again,” weren’t enough to make you think Lamb should be locked up, the military drum line shielding wailing screams in the background should have you scrambling for the Crimewatch phone number.

For a record that starts in such a disturbing and shocking manner what materialises is actually a quaint, dreamy and sedately romantic album. Lyrically ‘The Sorrowful Cry of The Final Kidney’ is a mercurial contrast from the albums opener. It’s a nervous tale of love with Lamb painfully crying that they, “Stopped short of kissing now,” set to futuristic melancholic synths. This same appreciation of modern music is also adopted in the minimal fragility of ‘When I Call’.

While the record makes sure that it doesn’t reject the future it also shamelessly embraces musical past – particularly Lambs love of folk music. Thirty Pounds are their joyful best during the short and snappy knees up of ‘Drinking With McGee,’ and the eruption of harmonies that take place in ‘Waves For Ketches’. Both of which are a fusion of ‘The Pogues’ tin whistle charisma and Thirty’s own modern day sea shanty tales.

It’s a shame Thirty Pounds struggle to maintain this fusion throughout. Fragile ballads like the title track ‘The Homesick Children Of Migrant Mothers’ and the painful ‘Her Love Song,’ often sound weak and bland in comparison to what surrounds them. Despite a few loose cannons, where shanty man Lamb almost falls from the plank ‘The Homesick Children Of Migrant Mothers’ is overall a quizzical coastal journey full of all the romance and heartbreak of life, that’s sailed along by a synthesis of traditional instruments of the heartland and a few modern day fibre optics for good measure.