Neil Fox and The Lower Depths - Smog and Soot

Smog and Soot is the incendiary album from the underground songwriter Neil Fox and the current project of Angus Gibson, lo-fi indie band, The Lower Depths.

Already well-known on the Edinburgh DIY scene in their own right, Smog and Soot finds the two collaborating for the first time. Together, their music combines Fox’s apocalyptic lyrics with the Lower Depths’ dark sixties grooves.

The album was recorded in Gibson’s bedroom studio in Edinburgh in 2019, shortly after the release of Fox’s solo album, The Songs of Neil Matthew Fox.

Gibson who produced the album said:

I was desperate to capture Neil’s prolific songwriting, but I also wanted to create an entirely new musical landscape to explore”, says Gibson, who produced the album.

The music is rooted in the dark bluesy surrealism of Nick Cave and Tom Waits, while the narrative rolls from song to song like the great concept albums of the 1960s and 1970s.

Gibson said:

I was very much inspired by the rock operas of the Kinks and The Who when making this album. Neil is every bit as good a songwriter as Waits, Cave, or Cohen, but his songs are also great narratives. I wanted to make an album that told his stories on a grander scale than just a three-minute song.

For Fox, Smog And Soot provided an opportunity to explore the past he says

I was reading The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell and was struck by how the working class are always ill-treated, their situation never changes”. So I started writing songs through this lens of empire and industry. The songs on this album are meant to question whether there is any hope for the working class in today’s society.

Smog and Soot is released today, Friday 17 April 2020.

The 13 songs on the album are set in an industrial Victorian landscape, the opening track An Angel Lies Here describes its bleakness in its opening line “this dismal town of smog and smoot, where the trees bear only rotten fruit” and also has the ascerbic line “where the blackened sky blocks out the sun, where the rich would never dare come”. Musically it’s a stripped back melancholy song again painting a picture of the setting.

Life of Sin, is the next track and describes the feelings of a worker in this industrial life as he sings about “I’m tired but I must go on, so tired but I must go on” suggesting there is no escape from the grim reality of the times !!

The next track The Blackened Sky sounds more upbeat in terms of melody, with a fantastic 60’s vibe from the keys and a very catchy guitar riff, however their is no let up on the dark lyrics. With Klaxon Calls, the keys are again setting the rhythm of the track, and as the name suggests is the call to work. Lyrically again it’s describing the life of the poor with the words “great men rise and great men fall, but the power remains the same” suggesting that their fates will always be determined by the rich.

Rotten Fruit is a sharp guitar based track and is a story of the destroying of land due to the industrial revolution described lyrically by the words “once this land was arable, with fertile fields around, destroyed by mines and railway tracks“. The Barrel Men takes the form of a pub song, almost spoken word, with a singalong chorus overlayed to sound like its being sung by many.

The Barbers has a real bluesy feel to it, great guitar riffs and hooks, and has you appreciating the beauty of the album so far, great musicianship and smart lyrics have been to the fore as we reach the halfway point of the album.

Track eight is Buildings Fall and is another track with a blues feel, there is an absolute fantastic guitar solo, lyrically again it’s just so sharp summed up by fantastic lines “the rats ran over cobbled stones, retreating to the drains, last of the old residents stood watching in the rain, deserted and displaced by this industry of change”.

Barefoot Children has a more upbeat feel to the song, excellent melodies giving a sense that there may be hope and optimism for the children in this desolate Victorian landscape !!! Left for Dead has a folk song vibe to it, jangly guitars and a very pronounced lyric, it tells the story of Joe Colquhoun, who is left for dead on the streets after a fight, as described by the lyrics “left for dead, stabbed and left to die alone on a starry night in June”.

The Whalers immediately has a more rock feel to it, heavier guitars and steady drum beat drive this track, again some of the lyric writing in this is just another level, love the lines “hailstones falling from the sky, they make me want to dance and cry, my skin is leather from the dust, our teeth are busted from the rust, jilted lovers bark and scream, as Cupid…….”.

The penultimate song is The Rich and is a song about class difference one of the lines describing “the masters always get their way, it’s been that way for centuries” and is summed up beautifully by the words of the chorus “we let the wolves right in our homes, they are on our TVs, they are on our phones”.

The final song is the title track Smog and Smoot and has a blues feel again, guitar melodies and riffs underpinning the song, and is essentially the place that is called home, the smog and soot being the descriptive of the Victorian industrial revolution.

This is a fantastic album, great melodies, fantastic melancholic vocals and razor sharp lyrics. If like me if you are a fan of Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen etc you will love this album and if your not give it a listen it may just change your mind.

Two Words - Sheer Brilliance !!

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