Mark Ripp & The Confessors "Long Story Short" (Independent, 2010)

Canadian rockers cook up a home-brewed storm!

Something of a veteran of the Toronto roots scene via his solo work and as front-man of the Bel-Vistas, Mark Ripp was dealt a backhanded favour when his studio engineer scrapped the sessions for this album at the last moment when something ‘more important’ (or more likely paying better) came up. Rightly pissed off, Ripp vowed to take his recorded fate into his own hands, venture into the unknown and set up a proper home recording facility. That ‘Long Story Short’ arrives some eight years after the last Confessors LP is testament to the fact that Ripp has been staying up late honing his production skills, and the results of his hard work are bold and apparent throughout this excellent album of strong songs.

From the off ‘Long Story Short’ has a raw and vibrant ‘homemade’ feel to it. That’s not to say anything about the album is amateurish; very far from it in fact, it’s just a very lively, untamed beast of a record and excitingly better for it.

The wonderful Power-pop jangle of opener ‘Miserable Life’ which is a witty embracing of misery, failure and apology "I have a little problem; I like the songs with the minor key…I’m still screwing up, and I probably always will” It’s tongue planted firmly in it’s cheek throughout it’s delicious run-off of personal failings.

‘Overdue’ with its REM-go-bar-room swagger is typical of this record’s wonderful sonic template; Ripp’s strong melodic and rootsy holler of a voice, careful but rampaging guitars, thrumming bass, Mike Mills style backing vocals, and a ton of great melodies at every turn.

The Confessors are a tight, nail-hard backing band, resembling in turns Crazy Horse’s raw energy, Drive-By Truckers’ addictive rock swagger and a live-wired version of REM’s melodic nous on the likes of the superb ‘Nothing Personal’, ‘Protected’ and the wonderfully brain rupturing fervour of ‘Bad Head Baby’ which is the kind of dark, alcohol & regret drenched, punk-infused blues Nick Cave could be rightly proud of.

‘Long Story Short’ manages to be by degrees both low-key but also vibrantly striking roots-rock music. It is strong on melody, and also Mark Ripp’s inherent wit as a narrator of troubled love, and of course the whole record’s likeable addictive energy.

Please let there not be another eight year wait until the next one!

Date review added:  Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Reviewer:  Ian Fildes
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  Mark Ripp's website