ALBUM REVIEW: Morton Valence – S/T

Cow Pie

Released: 28.10.22

It’s pretty likely I claim each new Morton Valence album is their best yet. So be it. It’s definitely true in this case. For their eighth (!!) album, our intrepid duo – Hacker and Anne, the real heirs to the ‘Lee and Nancy for the 21st century’ crown – fully commit to the urban country sound that’s come to dominate their recent releases, and getting pedal steel ninja BJ Cole in to play and produce was a master-stroke.

The songwriting just gets better and better, grittily romantic slices of English life, inhabited by characters you know, or have at least seen propping up the bar in a dingy pub. There’s always been a kinship with the songs of regular MV collaborator Band Of Holy Joy’s Johny Brown and he pops up here as co-writer on perhaps the strongest track, Like A Face That’s Been Starved Of A Kiss (“you know my estate, you know my malaise, I’m like a hate-filled city that’s been set ablaze”). There’s a Cohen-esque flamenco tune, Me & My Old Guitar, and a loose warmth to songs like Mary’s House that wouldn’t be out of place on The Basement Tapes. And it’s good to see the return of Bob and Veronica, here detailing their ‘Big Move’ to a quiet life away from London that’s perhaps not all it’s cracked up to be. I usually find room in an MV review to vent my frustration that they’re not as widely known as they ought to be. But fuck it, they’re magnificent and if people don’t know that yet, it’s their loss.