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Burlesque | 
| Artist: Bellowhead
Label: Westpark
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £9.28
You Save: £4.71 (34%)
New (18) Used (4) from £7.00
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 1481
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 5 x 0.4
EAN: 4015698801927
ASIN: B000HWXG3E
Release Date: September 25, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Rigs Of The Time | | • | Jordan | | • | Across The Line | | • | London Town | | • | Sloe Gin | | • | Courting Too Slow | | • | Flash Company | | • | Hopkinson's Favourite | | • | One May Morning Early | | • | Outlandish Knight | | • | Frog's Legs And Dragon's Teeth | | • | Fire Marengo |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Communication breakdown ? July 21, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I was really looking forward to hearing the first Bellowhead album in its entirety. A great live band who had built up a cult following and brought on board critics such as Mr Folk, Mike Harding and the music critics from the 'serious' newspapers.
Bellowhead could be seen as an English Pogues. Quirky and left field. Offering their own unique interpretations of traditional songs through their all singing all dancing 11 piece instrumental line up.
Mixing everything from folk,to rag time,vaudeville,trad jazz and roots, the Bellowhead sound is certainly unique.
Unfortunately for me,their strength is in their live performances. Burlesque is quite a way off mark in that it lacks any outstanding tracks and loses so much in its over complicated over cooked format.
With the band throwing every style and instrument known to man into the mix it soon starts to induce musical intergestion.
I would not take too much notice of the fawning fan reviews which give it five stars....FIVE STARS !!!
This aint no English 'If I should fall from grace with God'.
 Brilliant, melodic, genre-defying LP April 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
It's very rare indeed that a band emerges as different and talented as Bellowhead. The 11 piece big-band collective play contemporary, innovative versions of traditional folk songs, which, despite the band's size, have excellent, uncluttered arrangements.
Bellowhead is the brainchild of singer / fiddler Jon Boden and melodeon playing John Spiers, both well-known faces on the English folk circuit. One or other of the Jo(h)ns arranged most of the songs on Burlesque or wrote an original melody or reel with the exception of Across The Line and London Town which were arranged by Pete Flood and Paul Sartin respectively, Both highlights, London Town has an almost ska-like feel courtesy of Bellowhead's superb four-piece brass section who are more like the Dirty Dozen Band than the standard soul or jazz influenced horn ensemble.
Yes the brass section are crucial to Bellowhead's sound. They also particularly shine on the clipped, almost calypso-like instrumental Sloe Gin as well as providing further sympathetic, funky emblishments throughout the LP. Despite their presence though, Bellowhead are essentially a folk group with extensive notes on the derivation of each song provided in the inlay, presumably by Boden and Spiers. If these two have ever had enough of music, they would make excellent archivists...
The Bellowhead sound is so different that it's hard to describe the band in terms of musical influences though the closest match is possibly The Pogues at their most sophisticated around the time of If I Should Fall From Grace With God. This only of course tells half the story at most. For further non-folk pointers, the superb Across The Line and Courting Too Slow would not be out of place on The Waterboys' Fisherman's Blues whilst the discordant, vaudeville Flash Company peters towards Tom Waits' territory.
Don't just think of influences too much when playing Burlesque though but just enjoy it for the incredible body of work that it is. It's far too rich to be pigeonholed as just folk music with Bellowhead having huge potential cross-over appeal if they want it though I suspect, as mostly family men nearer 30 than 20, they are happy enough to be a big cult act. Whatever their intentions, Burlesque is a magnificent, melodic, extremely original album and is very highly recommended.
Big and brassy January 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Crazy, over the top, loads of oompah, fun, masterful, magical. You'll end up listening to this over and over again and loving it more and more each time. In the future this will be seen as a defining moment in folk music history. All power to Jon Boden and his compatriots.
The way music should be October 20, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was minded to write something thoughtful, incisive and intelligent drawing on modern and traditional trends in folk ... I can't be bothered! This is such a great album of great tunes, great arrangements, enthusiastically played with huge sprirt and love. Makes you feel so positive, upbeat and glad to be alive.
How does one become a Bellowheadhead? October 15, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wow! Wow! Wow! What a lovely, scrummy, dreamy, hoppy, happy CD! I bought it on faith, as I'm more or less guaranteed to like any band that is lazily classified as 'unclassifiable'. Now, this isn't actually unclassifiable, and there are precedents - think Squirrel Nut Zippers meet Brass Monkey - but they're doing it their way, and beautifully. First-rate musicianship and gorgeous arrangements, with more brass, strings and multipart harmonies than you can shake a baton at. Also, is it too geeky to praise their musical scholarship? They've really researched their sources, and I admire that. Their version of The Outlandish Night beats almost every other I know of. F.J. Child is applauding in his grave: this is how traditions keep going, through innovation and experimentation and sheer whimsy. Now, when are they going to come to East Kent??
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