(19-track LP/ 2000)
Aged Folk veteran Ralph McTell favours typical country drone for most of these 19 tracks, but cringeworthy song-of-hope opener �Up� (Rushing round in circles� �To be fearless does not mean you�re brave, to be brave means you have to know fear�) and the realistically optimistic, New-Age Travelling �Wagon On The Motorway� (�They never even gave me a single look, as she dreamed out at the fields� all they owned was in that truck � and I thought about us, and wished them luck�) are poppily easy-listening, the latter in �Motorway� reminding of Michael Chapman�s spellbindingly seductive melodies that are subtle, yet chillingly warm and feel-good. �One Day Away From You� is the first hint - and unfortunately by no means the final - of frustratingly uninspired country music at its most depressingly corny, but �Lost Boys� (�We�re the conscience of objectors�) spiritedly plays on the chirpy violins and livelier pace: a speedy deviation that could have McTell mistaken for the Levellers, his naturally deep and mournful voice more akin to Oysterband�s folk-rocking mainman. �Now This Has Started� gently goes nowhere like Martyn Joseph at his desperately mellow slowest, and while �Icarus Survived The Fall� (�You live for stolen moments�) promises to be more upbeat, that too - too quickly - dips into predictability without a second consideration for Prog-Folk. 19 very similarly-themed tracks, and things understandably stall as �tedious,� but �Let Me Fly Or Let Me Fall� (�I used to make you laugh, and you used to make me think� we�re not going anywhere � if there is no rush of air, and you cannot feel the road beneath the wheels�) carefully builds-up an inspired emotional resonance, as Ralph metaphorically story-tells of a man � perhaps himself � at the end of his Missus-adoring tether. �I suppose� (�Got myself beat up picking a fight�) has the cockiest swagger, McTellingly country-rocking on a sorrow-suffocating bender. Latecomers in tracks 17 & 19, Fin�s epic, attention-to-detailed lyric - �Naked bulbs, shed light upon the crumpled sheets, on beds in which were newly written, love letters scrawled in haste and heat� - proves he�s a poet of sorts, nostalgically backed-up by LP-closing title track �Red Sky At Night� (�The wind whipped a tear from his eye� screwed to a ball in his pocket, was the letter that said they�d foreclose � the anger inside fell and rose�), observing the pain-worry-pleasure-romance of a stress-stricken farmer trudging through his pastures come sundown � a song that could have taken a yet darker twist if written the same time this year instead of last. Foot and Mouth has the last laugh: a voice is there to be pushed, pulled and twisted, yet Ralph�s unchallenging vocals slap a potentially legendary voice in his face of mediocrity. Lyrically masterful when his songs are at their most meaningful, hear �Red Sky� - the album - if only for �Wagon On The Motorway.� (Steve Rudd.19/4/01)