The Nightingales are the past, present and the future

by

Rob Jones

Goodness me kids – the future of quality outsider rock n roll is now in the hands of The Nightingales. The sad passing of Mark E. Smith and the thus untimely demise of his majestic band The Fall leaves The Nightingales as the only remaining national treasure. Coming in from the peripheries since the 1980’s The ‘Gales can still cut the mustard and with the poetical python Robert Lloyd to the fore there is always going to be the flag of uniqueness flying high!
The music meanders between a range of genres but it is never constant in its delivery as one song can even take on a multitude of lives. The post punk tag is the most obvious pigeonholing but such a lazy labelling would decry the magnificent magnitude of The Nightingales. One questions any alternative music fan who has not dipped all ten toes, both legs and upper torso in to this vat of variety,
The new 2018 album ‘Perish the Thought’ is not just consistently charismatic in its confident contents it is arguably the band’s finest ever work. Bright and breezy, big and bouncy with the usual unusual from the wonderful wordsmith that is Lloyd – the Midlander bard! The songs come out of every nook and cranny and with Robert and drum dynamo Fliss Kitson sharing the vocal duties the band most definitely ‘does know what they’re doing!’
If you miss this one you are cutting yourself short of both delicious invention and an immaculate achievement from an organisation built on a hectic work ethic – and, when it comes to seeing this outfit live you will never see the likes of this intensity anywhere else. The act plays solid from start to finish with no respite just raw and regal rhythms!