52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #24

John Knox Sex Club – Raise Ravens

(Self-released, 2011)

Buy the album here

Scotland is renowned as a proud country of great national beauty, from the coves and jagged rocks of its coastline to the beguiling and ever-changing scenes of its highland ranges, but for most of its inhabitants Scotland is a far more urban experience.  With massive population centres like Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland’s history and character are as tied to industrialisation, living conditions, and education, as they are to its famous mountains, lochs, and wildlife (real or mythic).  While Scottish music may still be widely considered to stem from rural and Highland traditions, and most commonly encountered at ceilidhs, Scotland has a more recent but equally important musical identity.  Bands like Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, and Mogwai have created a new urban “folk” music that, inadvertently or otherwise, draws on tradition but actively engages with the urban existence of Scotland’s contemporary population.  For me, John Knox Sex Club does this better than anyone.  Even their name pulls on Scotland’s history and drags it in to the red-tinged light of modern, urban Scotland.  Filled with traditional instrumentation juxtaposed with amplified guitars, crashing percussion, and honest vocals with native accents, theirs is an openly folk approach to post-rock-influenced indie.

To describe John Knox Sex Club simply as indie denies them the full impact of their epic visions and immense musical power.  It’s a music that should only be played in the cavernous and echoing halls of grand castles and cathedrals.  Fittingly, the vocals are delivered with the worryingly addictive vehemence of a preacher sermonising on your sins, while the orchestral strings clash with the rhythm section like the forces of heaven battling the demons of hell.  This is epic indie with unbound scope and musical ambition.  Opening track, and 13-minute behemoth, “Kiss the Dirt” does all of this and more with its cold, foggy, Scottish morning opening gently strummed and lyricised, and its powerfully cathartic peaks packed with Mogwai-like progressive dynamics.  The heartfelt and beautiful vocals work alongside the violins to cut through the intensity of the instrumentation and provide a moving poetic exploration of modern civilisation.  The lyrics are an epic poem of human history, mythology, politics, fate, love and more that anchors itself to modern urban life:

Link arms across

High rise flats

Or watch as our lives drop

Like dripping taps

In forgotten rooms

It is an unfathomably good song; uplifting yet honest, musically epic but never complex, “Kiss the Dirt” is an astounding way to open an album.  The only problem being that it’s impossible for the album to maintain this standard.

“Above Us the Waves” is a beautiful song of longing that replaces the immensity of “Kiss…” with lyrical and musical subtlety.  Passion is still a driving force here, but John Knox… ask us now to take pleasure in quiet moments, gentle melodies, self-effacing hooks, and minute domestic observations meeting grand nature similes.  It’s a comedown of sorts, but one that rewards repeat listens.  From there an instrumental track leads us from “…Waves” to the more outwardly post-rock slow build to powerful release of “The Neighbours” and its memories of family strife in urban settings.  A memorable chorus is supported by a twisted bass line that winds itself around the gliding strings and escalating wails of both vocalists, before ominously leaving us with the permanent and unresolved danger of the line “like footsteps in the hall”.  It’s another impassioned poem of urban life that leaves the listener in awe.  “Katie Cruel” is a reworking of a traditional song that further develops the idea of a new folk music in Scotland.  The sparse, gloomy atmosphere combined with the underlying distorted guitar sounds give this traditional song a modern twist without overwhelming the strings and the original lyrics.  Where hints of Harvestman peek through on “Katie Cruel”, the final track has a more accessible Crippled Black Phoenix quality to it.  A noticeably warmer verse and guitar sound in “The Thaw” is interrupted by the experimental, part spoken word, mid-section that layers light sounds in a dizzying manner.  John Knox… then find their way gently to the uplifting and hopeful repetition of the album’s final line:

The grass grows beneath the ice and snow

Produced in small batches and packaged by hand by the band themselves, Raise Ravens is a unique view on modern life in Scotland produced by a truly independent band.  Never disavowing the past, never judging the present, and finally pointing to the future, John Knox… have produced an album that touches on all parts of life in Scotland.  While the lack of record company backing may have contributed to multiple hiatuses, it is their independence that allowed John Knox… to truly express themselves and deliver the beauty of this album to anyone who wishes to listen.