A Singsong & A Scrap

CHUMBAWAMBA - "A Singsong and a Scrap" CD (AK Press)
The 13th full length (if I counted correctly) album from these long running anarchists. CHUMBAWAMBA started out a punk band in the early 80s and have made music covering a number of different sounds other than punk, including dance, hiphop, pop, world, and even an amazing all acappella album of worker songs. This album ventures into new territory in that it's an acoustic record. Pop folk with lots of vocals including a couple acappella tracks. The lyrics and vocals are the focus and topics including a hard hitting anti-war song, a song about the first meeting between Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, a wonderful version of Italian song Bella Ciao, to a THE CLASH cover.
**1. Sarcastic, simple acoustic pop with wonderful lyrics. "Love on a Monday, football on a Saturday. Home-grown, strawberries to justify the rain. Sometimes I do, but I shouldn't complain. Laughter in a time of War."
2. Pure pop about a person who rules over people in their own lavish life and die alone.
3. Pretty song with female vocals about Joe Hill.
4. Horns and a bit cheesy about Britain's first mass tresspass.
**5. Powerful acappella track with multiple female and male vocalists about fundamentalism. Sort of a prayer, with the title as the chorus, "walking into battle with the lord". Powerful.
**6. Sounds almost twee acoustic pop with subtle accordion and the track is about one of the most wonderful and powerful meetings of two humans. This is about the first time Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman met. These two people mean too much to me for me to listen to this track from any musical perspective. The story is all I hear.
7. Upbeat, accordion and slight Celtic or Irish leanings about a punk in pub who's talks about how punk is not about how you look.
**8. Great acappella cover of THE CLASH'S track Bankrobber.
9. Piano and a track that is in a old folk tradition. There are unlimited songs about a woman waiting for her man to come back from war. Well, in this track, she doesn't wait.
10. Male vocals, upbeat acoustic pop.
**11. Powerful acappella take on Italian fighting song. I've always loved this melody line.
12. Subdued acoustic pop with soft chorus. For workers.
13. Acoustic guitar and male vocals. About two men in love.
Good stuff. -mph