Dom Martin - Buried Alive

Buried Alive is a big album.  It’s big in the sense of capacious – clocking in at 97 minutes it would even be pushing it as an old-fashioned “double live album”, cramming the vinyl with grooves.  But it’s also big in the sense of important, because it confirms – if there was any doubt – that Dom Martin is one of the most original and significant roots music artists out there right now.
I say original, because Dom Martin doesn’t just tread the same well-trodden paths as other singer/guitarists.  He’s not simply a heavy-riffing blues-rocker, for example, though he chucks some buckets of grit into the likes of ‘Unhinged’, with its Hendrix-twisted riff, and the Rory-like, sock-it-to-‘em rock’n’roll slide guitar of ’12 Gauge’.  He doesn’t trot out an endless stream of archetypal guitar solos either, though he does rip it up a bit on both of the above tracks, as well as dialling

Dom Martin - out there on his own

Pic by Tony Cole

up a storm or two amidst the light and shade of ‘Dixie Black Hand’.  Oh yeah, and he knows his way around a slow blues as well, as he shows on ‘Lefty 2 Guns’ with its plethora of licks.
But still, Martin’s modus operandi extends beyond this familiar kinda rockin’ fare much of the time.  For a start, this is a live album on which Martin devotes over half the running time to an acoustic set that finds him weaving tapestries of beautiful, mesmerising guitar as the backdrop for some dark and dangerous tales, told in his sonorous voice that often veers towards a bass pitch that also sets him apart from the herd.
The first of these acoustic excursions, a medley of ‘Easy Way Out’ and ‘Belfast Blues’, is a double whammy of death and danger, set to rippling, coruscating guitar picking that’s quasi-Celtic in the first half, then more Delta bluesy in the second, as it exerts a magnetic pull for over 11 minutes.  It’s astonishing – and by no means uniquely so in this collection.
For example, the following segueway of ‘Hello In There’ and ‘The Fall’ glitters, glistens and shifts like a kaleidoscope of silver and gold, incorporating some classical Spanish stylings, while Martin quietly lays out some wistful reflections.  And ‘Hell For You’/’Mercy’ shimmers and sparkles in relaxed fashion even as the Dom fella muses bitterly that “There’s a hell for you, baby”, in tones that carry a John Martyn-like undercurrent of languid smokiness.
In fact Martin’s voice is as important an instrument as his guitar throughout, whether he's toting an acoustic or an electric.  His rich groan takes on an emphatic, determined tone to go with the twanging blues of the opening ‘Daylight I Will Find’, underlining the resilience of the refrain that “It’s been a long old road to ruin / Daylight I will find”.  Then on ‘Government’ the simple, folk-ish tune leaves him space to convey both weariness and disgust.  And ‘Buried In The Hail’ ventures even further into the darkness with sparse, bluesy twanging and an atmospheric vocal to go with the evocative lyrics.
There are counterpoints to the downbeat contemplation though. ‘Howlin’’ trips along merrily to develop into a full blown guitar rag, before taking a sharp turn into electric blues explorations worthy of the title, then exploding into some ruff’n’tuff riffing.  Meanwhile ‘Belfast Blues’ is dramatic and cinematic with lines like “I’ve been shot, stabbed and burned out with those Belfast blues again”, and “Well I grabbed that shovel and I dug that hole / I threw myself in and I watched myself go,” but the drama is soundtracked by a fierce stomp and jagged guitar as much as by quiet menace.  And then the likes of ‘Unhinged’ and ’12 Gauge’ arrive to raise the tempo and the volume.
Is there anyone else out there doing what Dom Martin does?  I don’t think so.  He's out there on his own, doing his own singular thing and doing it masterfully.  Get Buried Alive, and get  yourself wrapped up and cocooned in his performance.
 
Buried Alive is released by Forty Below Records on 13 December, and can be ordered here.

Dom Martin - Buried In The Hail

Personality. Originality. Talent.
There isn’t a simple formula for making standout, attention-grabbing music, but I reckon those three qualities will probably get you a long way – and Dom Martin has them in spades, as his third album Buried In The Hail demonstrates.
This isn’t yer common-or-garden blues-rock album.  Dom Martin goes his own way, right from the start.  ‘Hello In There’ is a dreamy, zephyr-like opener, Martin’s folkie acoustic guitar picking

Dom Martin gets electrified

Pic by Tony Cole

conjuring up a pastoral mood, embellished by faint background noises like children’s voices in a playground.  And he doesn’t feel the need to make a grand statement at the other end of the album either, where ‘Laid To Rest’ is the dying fall its title would suggest.  Over minimalist tapped out percussion, punctuated by an unusual harp-like springing noise, Martin picks away at a sparse, repetitive guitar line, with a tone that’s almost banjo-like in its brittle steeliness.  And that’s all folks.
As on his previous album A Savage Life, at times he draws on some John Martyn-like Celtic folk stylings in his own distinctive way, as on ‘Government’ and ‘The Fall’.  The former marries glistening acoustic guitar chords and a halting drumbeat to Martin’s gruff but sensitive vocal, as he intones a weary, mantra-like lyric about how “It’s time to call it a day” until the song stalls like an unwound clock.  Meanwhile ‘The Fall’ progresses from isolated, frost-bright strums of guitar into glittering picking like a winter stream, accompanying Martin’s patient, drawn-out vocals.  Has he overdubbed guitar parts to create the intricate guitar-scape that develops?  I dunno, but it sure sounds like there’s a whole lot of picking going on.
Things get more obviously bluesy on a few tracks.  ‘Daylight I Will Find’ has a rootsy vibe, as Martin rolls out tumbling acoustic blues guitar over a simple thudding beat, creating a swaying, hypnotic feel decorated by a few slide guitar fills, while he delivers a characterful vocal, full of good phrasing, about how “It’s been a long old road to ruin / Daylight I will find”.  ‘Howlin’’ has an old-fashioned Delta blues feel, with prickling-and-pointing electric guitar over snappily shuffling drums, creating something jaunty and irresistible.  ‘Buried In The Hail’ itself is a brooding, atmospheric affair that combines restrained electric guitar and Martin’s gruffest vocal, rumbling away in the murk of a stormy night, in a manner akin to a distant cousin of Zeppelin’s ‘Bring It On Home’.  And ‘Lefty 2 Guns’ is absorbing blues storytelling, with a simple, looping guitar line, hesitant bass, and dragging drums, until Martin’s gritty guitar takes off into SRV-ish territory with some scurrying soloing.
Martin can pack a punch too when he wants to though, as on ‘Belfast Blues’, on which his dirty, fuzzy guitar describes a ringing, revolving figure over a stomping drum rhythm that gradually acquires more character as it develops into a driving shuffle, while Martin groans out the vocal and adds dashes of slide.  On ‘Unhinged’, meanwhile, he cranks out some barbed, spiky guitar with squeals of added emphasis, crunches into a classic three chord progression at the end of each verse, before the guitar and drums start slamming into each other with controlled aggression, as a precursor to our Dom goes off on a soloing jaunt with Celtic undertones.
In the midst of all this there’s also a startling, sui generis cover of the Patsy Cline hit ‘Crazy’, which sounds like it’s been relocated from Nashville to a smoky Parisian cellar, with just twinkling guitar notes to accompany Martin’s slow, Tom Waits-like vocal, eventually giving way to some Gary Moore-like electric guitar divertissements over splashes of drums.
It may sound from some of this like there’s nothing dramatic happening here.  No crackerjack electric guitar show-offery.  No bouts of epic, cinematic grandeur.  No wailing vocals.  And that’s true – but at the same time everything is happening.  Like some musical Jedi, Dom Martin casts a spell and draws you into his web.  Buried In The Hail is the sound of a special talent.
 
Buried In The Hail is out now on Forty Below Records.

Dom Martin - A Savage Life

Not many albums cross my path these days that leave me seriously wanting more.  Even really good ones can stray into filler, or repetition.  Still fewer releases are so out-of-the-box fresh and distinctive that they actually take me by surprise.  Dom Martin’s A Savage Life lands squarely in both these categories.  Coming in at just 34 minutes, the only real problem with this album is that there should be more of it.  More significantly, what Dom Martin has served up ain’t no run-of-the-mill blues-rock fodder.  No siree, this stuff has the word “special” stamped on it in Martin’s patented shade of blues ink.
That Martin is at ease with a geetar in his mitts is evident right from the git-go, with ‘Unsatisfied’,

Dom Martin - out there, on his own

Pic by Tony Cole

on which he peels off some barbed-wire coils of guitar notes in relaxed, measured fashion, over halting bass from Dave Thompson, then slips into a flickering solo.  The result is something of a spaced-out, Trower-esque tone and vibe, but combined with a growled vocal worthy of the title, until he sings “You make it look so easy, you just stop” - and does just that.  Boom - he hits the brakes after less than three minutes, just as broader pastures await.  What’re you playing at Dom?  I was enjoying that!
But ‘Unsatisfied’ is really just Martin getting warmed up with something at least adjacent to the mainstream.  Where he really scores is when he gets off the beaten track, most notably with some acoustic guitar excursions.  Get your ears round ‘Echoes’ for example, where he reels off some deliciously iridescent folky acoustic playing, rippling along beautifully till he conjures up a teasing, suspenseful closing passage.  Even more pleasingly, this is the accompaniment for a largely hushed vocal that – and this is not a one-off – evokes the dreamy spirit of John Martyn.  There’s more of this sensibility invested in ‘Addict’ too, with a revolving acoustic guitar refrain and another husky vocal, and if the melody isn’t a complete standout then Martin’s delivery of the lyric, about a drug-addled girl, still shows more feeling in a couple of lines than you’d get from a million streams of Ed Sheeran’s ‘A-Team’.
But it’s not just when he sits down with an acoustic that Martin can do more with less.  ‘Here Comes The River’ seems to involve nothing but two electric guitars, one strumming and plucking gentle chords, the other rolling out bluesy licks to create the ideal, hypnotic backing for his smoky singing.  Meanwhile the simple blues chord sequences of ‘Blues On The Bay’ are elevated by his delicate lead playing, his ability to pull out charmingly unexpected chords and flurries of notes, and Jimmy Dewar-like dreamy vocals.  But oh man – again he opts to hit the ‘Stop’ button when there seems to be so much more to say!
‘The Man From Nowhere’ is a twirling guitar rag with an unnecessary needle-crackling background effect, and if I say it isn’t really my cup of cognac that’s no criticism of the confident execution.  But ‘Drink In Blues Colours’ is more seductive and then some, with its drowsy, ‘Rain Song’-like chords to open, a fine blues solo after the verse-chorus, and another magnetic vocal.  The simplicity is breath-taking, and enhanced by a second solo, that’s fluid then prickly, over Thompson’s sympathetically rolling bass and easy-as-it-goes drums from Laurence McKeown.
There are a couple of more upbeat outings in ’12 Gauge’ and ‘Maxwell Shuffle’.  The former bristles with a properly gutsy, slide-slipping blues-rock riff and ducking and diving bass, to go with a rasping vocal, and there’s a splintering solo that ends all to soon when a proper wig-out was beckoning.  Then ‘Maxwell Shuffle’ is a rhythm-meets-lead blues instrumental with an air of SRV about it, squeezing several segments into its short lifespan before charging to a conclusion.
It's back to more subdued territory for the closing track though.  ‘The Parting Glass’ is an arrangement of an elegiac Celtic folk song, heralded by a ghostly guitar intro.  Martin’s Northern Irish voice does full justice to the spirit of the song, delivering it with real feeling and subtlety.
I’ll say it again.  This is an album that’s sui generis – which is a fancy way of saying “one of a kind”.  Sure, I wish Dom Martin had let loose a bit more here and there, because sometimes you can have too little of a good thing.  And let’s be clear, A Savage Life is a really, really good thing.
 
A Savage Life is released on 8 April, and can be ordered here.