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Review: The Answer, Fleece
As Spinal Tap found to their cost, the “Hope you like our new direction” manoeuvre is a tricky one to pull off. The risk is that you can lose all your old fans and fail to gain any new ones. After a highly promising start, Northern Irish quartet The Answer’s progress seemed to stall. While nobody really expected them to top rock’s first division, the consensus was that a band this talented deserved to be doing a whole lot better. So, inspired by personal circumstances and an urge to shake things up, they opted for a revamp with sixth album, Solas, which gets all Gaelic on our asses and, it’s safe to say, has enjoyed a mixed reception. Uncompromisingly, they promised to play most of it tonight.
There’s a mandolin and bouzouki on stage – not instruments normally associated with The Answer’s brand of driving hard rock – and one of these new songs was co-written with Massive Attack’s long-term production and composing collaborator Neil Davidge. But let’s not get carried away here. This isn’t like The Enid going rave and promptly disappearing into the wilderness as their entire fanbase flees in horror. While there’s an undeniably moodier and frequently folkier tone to some of The Answer’s newer material, stripped of studio embellishments it still rocks most satisfactorily on stage. They’re careful to ease us in with old fan fave Never Too Late before unleashing that Davidge co-write, Beautiful World. Its long brooding intro is certainly unlike anything we’ve heard from them before, but as the tempo picks up we’re back on more familiar territory. New single In This Land is a full-on Celtic singalong and they bravely continue the mostly unplugged theme with an emotional Thief of Light, during which vocalist Cormac Neeson whips out that dreaded bouzouki.
While it’s fair to say that the old hard-rockin’ stuff (Spectacular, New Horizon, Come Follow Me) gets the strongest crowd reaction, The Answer’s loyal audience doesn’t seem discernibly alienated by this gentle readjustment of the songwriting tiller towards, well, a new horizon. This is also a band that has finally grown into its material. They all seemed inappropriately fresh-faced and youthful when they first pitched up; now they positively bristle with facial hair. Neeson remains a genuinely engaging frontman, still rocking that combination of Old Testament preacher and St. Vitus Dance victim, and is manifestly proud of Solas. Whether that’s enough to produce the upswing in fortunes The Answer are hoping for remains to be seen.
is needed now More than ever
Read more: Metal & Prog picks: March 2017
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