Hillborough ‘Comin Back For You’
Southern twangs wail along a lonesome harmonica. Jangling guitar tells a heartfelt, drunken tale as the shakers brings rhythm closer to your bones. In Phil Usher’s husky vocals and Beata Maglai’s haunting backings, Hillborough brings an eclectic album Comin’ Back For You, taking listeners for a ride in the countryside.
Hillborough’s sound is quite distinguishable. With a full band of shaker, electric guitar, bass, drum, keys, and vocals, they create a rich, long-lasting reverberant resonance in their music. A sultry impressions with certain ghostly wanders and rumbling bones that are always on the move. In this album, Hillborough brings you a roster of people often being overlooked in real life: a gold miner, a laughing clown, a lover, an Irish queen. They tap into that fictional, hyper-reality space of storytelling in folk music, and create something that is hard to forget.
Troubles led up to the momentum in title track “Comin’ Back For You.” The dynamic tracks tells the tale of a lover, eager to come home. His burning desires become that aching, restless rhythm, so infectious that sweeps you off your feet. Apparently nothing and no one could stop him, not even the train. Hillborough brings such a character in this charismatic song. Maglai’s angelic backing vocal gives the track a very nice touch, like a muse, a hope that waits at the end of the road.
“Exit Wounds” slows down the tempo almost immediate. Sin-bearing guitar riff evokes a darker tone. A sense of heaviness and sorrow loom at the track. Revolving around a wounded man with an arrow to the heart, “Exit Wounds” offers a raw, heart-to-heart vulnerability with weight. Maglai’s voice comes in clouds in the organ-infused soundscape.
“When Nobody Knows Your Name” has a bit of ska in their country music. It’s an interesting track that explores the loss and freedom of a wandering soul in a place that no one knows his name. “Port Jackson Blues” drops into the crude, deserted life of living. Port Jackson is a gold miner. He travels far to make ends meet. The music has much western, horse-back rhythm to it, portraying such a wild and vivid imagery that can’t exist else where.
