The pairing of Dawn & The Replicants frontman Paul Vickers with Edinburgh’s Steve Albini-approved noise combo The Leg was ‘the’ genius pairing of 2007 when they came together to perform at the SL Records 10th Birthday celebrations. They must have realised they’d found something special too because they’ve now here comes their album.
Like both artists, Tropical Favourites is a tough one to put your finger on. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the record will change into something completely different. Vickers is a natural wordsmith; funny and surreal with a powerful bluesy voice that still shows his English accent sounding somewhere between Mark E.Smith and Captain Beefheart, but jollier while sharing the same kind of knack for dark humorous storytelling as Nick Cave. The Leg are one of those rare groups, that are affluent and enriched in every style of music but like to make whatever it is they are doing as loud and powerful as possible.
Wild Geese begins with quite a mainstream bass riff that you could expect to hear on daytime radio. Until Vickers comes in that is. Add in some surf guitar and a melody based on the nursery rhyme of the old woman who swallowed the fly and already you can tell this is like nothing heard before. From the poem Powerful Soup to the Black Sabbath-ish Car Horns Of Rio, the ho-down feel of Chime Chime Cherry and the bluesy swamp song; The Ballad of Bess Houdini, Tropical Favourites is no one-trick pony. And it’s not all fun and games either as Paperboat reveals a serious side. A real rock ballad with strings that suggests if they wanted to be in the mainstream they could. However, it is likely that this pairing are having too much fun right now to worry about such things which will hopefully mean there is more to come from Paul Vickers & The Leg.
//Kirk Burton