God sends strange signs. So strange that you might not even notice the divine intervention of the Almighty. Quite why God would send me a sign that said that the path to truth and salvation would be found in a slab of yellow vinyl called “How I Won The Culture War” is unclear yet a sign is a sign and enlightenment was duly blessed upon me by Kevin P Gilday & The Glasgow Cross.
I see that sign spinning on the turntable and perhaps we should all take a moment to worship the kind of, often presumed lost, literacy that is the progeny of an intellect sharpened to a Sabatier point. Kevin P Gilday & The Glasgow Cross convincingly evidence said literacy and are surely a product of a world where art matters – so perhaps not this one – and they also provide some solid evidence regarding what the people could do when there is nothing on the television. Something worthwhile.
Kevin P Gilday is undoubtedly a wordsmith and he holds the only poetry gold medal that I have ever issued for causing me, many years ago and completely unprompted, to remember one of his poems. On this particular album, he does often emote as if cabaret night at the chapel of love was his one and only true vocation yet, despite the pretension that of necessity comes with such an artistic direction, he never loses focus on his many and myriad targets and, with acid flowing freely through his veins and looped emotional anguish residing between his ears, he soon demonstrates why the pen still has power in this touchscreen world. There is the self-reflection, as is the way of the poet, but his words, ably complemented by the melodic and rhythmic angularity of his Glasgow Cross cohorts, still sound like the motivation for their creation is a wide ranging frustration at the decline and fall of mankind that won’t ever be suppressed by Prozac and, even when he injects humour into his meandering between today’s cultural waypoints, he always remains a possible contender for the post of the man who came down from the mountain.
No doubt, in reality, Kevin P Gilday gets excited about pastry when he finds himself in an organic coffee shop yet, underneath all that arty stuff, lurks a man who can speak from both heart and mind simultaneously which, as you might not have noticed, is most unusual these days.
That reminds me. Where is my crack pipe? God knows.
Best songs: the soon to be legendary “Mediocre White Man Blues”
Verdict. Art challenges anger to a fight. Anger wins on points.
The vinyl is available from Bandcamp