Bingo Fury - Bats Feet For A Widow Review
Bingo Fury’s debut album is by definition a curio - ‘a rare, unusual and intriguing thing’.
Bingo Fury’s debut album is by definition a curio - ‘a rare, unusual and intriguing thing’. Everything feels slightly off-kilter, from the perplexing title all the way through to Fury’s eccentric production methods.
And, in a world where most things seem to be decidedly on kilter, this is a very welcome thing indeed.
The 24-year-old Bristolian shunned the idea of a more conventional recording studio to record the album at Cotham Parish Church, a place which had never previously been used for such matters. Fury grew up in a religious environment and wanted to challenge himself and his band theologically as well as musically. Holy communion has begun and Bingo Fury is at the pulpit.
The results are grand, in every sense of the word. Not only does the album conjure a feeling of jazz-infused celestial otherworldliness but sonically it’s glorious too. Though, for all its devout endeavours it’s back down on planet Earth where the album truly shines. Engineer Joe Jones does a fantastic job of creating a drum-sound which had me wondering if drummer Henry Terret had set his kit up in the corner of my living room. He hadn’t, I checked.
The rest of Fury’s band consists of Meg Jenkins on bass, Harry Furniss on cornet and multi-instrumentalist Rafi Cohen on guitars, glockenspiel and piano. Throughout the album, Fury’s band flits around unconventional timings and woozy jazz arrangements with ease. Sparse rhythms are drawn into wild crescendos which threaten to split at the seams but are always reined in just in the brink of time. All of this hinges on Fury’s laid-back baritone voice, which he utilises to perfection. At times, he’s less a singer and more a poet as he croons lyrical gems like “I saw you backlit by a street light flickering in morse code. Devastation was in the air as we wandered through the centerfold.” Fury has that rare ability of managing to say a lot without really saying anything at all. He’s perhaps one of the most literary new artists around, which is surprising considering Fury himself claims to have only ever read three books in his entire life.
The band is introduced on first track Carolina’s Theme. An instrumental amuse-gueule, which provides listeners with a tantalising taste of what's to come. Fury, and that voice, join the band on second track Unlistening. Here, rattlesnake percussion punctuates Fury’s vocals as he laments his lost faith, “I was broken, I was stunned by religion. Now I can’t seem to keep it straight. I keep waking up with all your tattoos”. It’s said that at one point during recording a crucifix fell off the wall. Make of that what you will.
The album is infused with incidental sounds - tossed house keys, the clinking of wine glasses and even that aforementioned crucifix clattering to the ground. It all adds to Fury’s rich tapestry of soundscapes. On album highlight, I’ll Be Mountains, the percussion becomes so wild and unhinged it starts to resemble a dog barking, apparently the result of Fury pummelling church organ pipes with a stick. Probably best to not tell the vicar.
Bats Feet For A Widow isn’t without flaws, though thankfully they are few and far between. At points towards the album’s conclusion, it’s hard not to find yourself searching for something which never quite materialises. It’s as though Fury becomes a victim of his own success. You know he has greatness in him, all the components are there and you desperately want something to break out of the mould and elevate the album into the stratosphere. Instead, it keeps its feet firmly rooted to the church floor.
Consisting of just nine tracks, two of which are instrumentals, it’s hard to not feel like Bats Feet For A Widow is caught in that strange place between being an album and an EP and ultimately it leaves you with the impression that this is just a precursor for something even more spectacular.
Until then we’ll just have to settle for repeated listens of Bats Feet For A Widow. Thank God, or Bingo Fury, for that.