Jig-a-Jig

Do someone wish to do a placement on a Skyclad album? This EP is probably destined to become a pretty rare item after a few years or so. Indeed, the fact it’s only available at gigs or through the band’s official website would be enough to suggest it’s intended to be sold to die-hard fans only; and even then, the fact it officially costs £5 for four tracks and a bit more than ten minutes of music is likely to discourage some of them. And musically... well, it’s without any doubt Skyclad, but it’s only a short, short survey of what Skyclad can really do.

The title track can hardly be labelled as a song – even an instrumental one, as it mainly consists in a traditional Irish music jam, topped by additional bits of electric guitars here and there. Fragments of tunes used in various ‘Clad songs may spring to ears, especially the lead fiddle tune of Penny Dreadful. It’s funny how every time Skyclad could be accused of bringing out a cash-grab – with this EP, with the acoustic compilation No Daylights... or the “disguised EP” Oui Avant-Garde a Chance – a new version of Penny Dreadful, their song against music industry, appears. Look, you may think it’s a commercial operation, but we’re playing Penny Dreadful, y’know – This piper’s tune is not for sale/ I’m glad to say I’m not this kind of fellah/ and so on.

Granted, the three following tracks are genuine songs, however they’re far from being the best the British band ever crafted. The most remarkable is probably the bouncing closing number The Roman Wall Blues, but as readers familiar with Skyclad will have already guessed, it’s the same song as NTRWB (Not the Roman Wall Blues, hey), only with different lyrics, and also without the backing keyboard which anyway was so discrete it doesn’t fundamentally change the song’s overall appearance. On Mr Malaprope and Co. Kevin Ridley sings very fast again, a bit like on Three Little Kingdoms on the A Semblance of Normality album, and the whole song indeed sounds a bit too fast and simple, summing up more to a standard drinking song than to a serious folk metal tune. Finally, concerning the slower but repetitive They Think It’s All Over (Well Is It Now), it would have probably been little more than a filler on the aforementioned previous album. Actually, what does this EP consist in, except in four B-sides of A Semblance of Normality?

Nothing to waste £5 for, then.