Roaring Boys, by Paul Roland

Roaring Boys

by Paul Roland

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theexplodingogre Paul Rolland's Roaring Boys is a collection of chamber folk and raving rock with literature and occult references. It's hard to find something not to like about each track. Favorite track: Roaring Boys.

Denstrow Wonderful Roland as usual...The Poets & the Painters is a masterpiece!

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Full Digital Discography

34

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Get all 34 Paul Roland releases available on Bandcamp and save 45%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of 'Hello Fred' the Thin Youth Said (Home demo), 1992 Dutch Radio Session, A Grimm Fantasy For Orchestra (demo), Nosferatu (Gothic ballet music only), (My Dog Is Hooked On) Cocaine with Andy Ellison, Candyman (bandcamp exclusive EP), In Memory of a Time Traveller (unreleased early mix), Lair of the White Worm (unreleased version), and 26 more. , and , .

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1.	Roaring Boys 04:10	buy track
2.	Resurrection Joe 03:52	buy track
3.	Christine 03:32	buy track
4.	Faeries 02:49	buy track
5.	Sad Sweet Smile 03:10	buy track
6.	Tarot 03:41	buy track
7.	The Executioner's Song 02:56	buy track
8.	The Poets & The Painters 03:56	buy track
9.	Doctor Rocque 02:52	buy track
10.	The Minstrel's Song 03:26	buy track
11.	Come To The Sabbat 06:30	buy track

about

QUINTESSENTIALLY ENGLISH BAROQUE PSYCH-POP

'Roaring Boys' puts together half-a-dozen first-rate songs, starting with the sparkling title track, musically still in the vein of the aggressive folk-rock of 'Masque' and introduced by a striking jig-like guitar intro courtesy of Heffernan. The tone becomes more sombre on Resurrection Joe, which benefits from the addition of an impressive saxophone solo: the song revisits one of the darkest pages in the history of Albion, that of the notorious body snatchers Burke and Hare. As with the previous song, Roland uses a language that perfectly resembles that of Victorian Britain, to the point that the CD rerelease features brief explanatory footnotes for the most archaic terms.
Other tracks reprise the heavy, metallic sounds of the most abrasive songs on 'Duel'. That is the case with Tarot, a macabre horror story about destiny inspired by the reading of Dennis Wheatley’s 1971 essay on Satanism The Devil and All His Works and set in a Paris quarter where ‘houses are hunched like a beggar’, which climaxes in an impressive drum break, as outmoded as it is fitting with the song’s mood. Wheatley’s work looms also over the sulphurous Come to the Sabbat, a dilated hard rock cavalcade which borrows the title from a 1970 song by Black Widow and another by Mercyful Fate (who Paul was writing about at the time for a heavy metal magazine). It includes a lengthy drum solo accompanied by a sampling from the climactic ritual in Terence Fisher’s The Devil Rides Out (1968), based on Wheatley’s 1934 novel, in which the Satanic high priest Mocata (Charles Gray) invokes the Horned One. On the other hand, the acoustic The Poets and The Painters and The Minstrel’s Song strike and move deeply, while the baroque pop song Christine, the story (loosely based on The Tomb of Ligeia) of a “woman who lived twice” that could be the ideal musical twin of Gabrielle, is graced by an exquisite Spanish guitar line by Martin Reed. The Poets and the Painters deals with the theme of artistic creation, and takes inspiration from the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais: at an art exhibition, a woman meets the artist who, despite his success, is in tears, having realized that the muse of inspiration from his younger days has abandoned him, and will never return. It is one of Roland’s most moving and refined lyrics, carried by a touching melody and perfectly aided by Randall’s exquisite woodwind and string arrangement. Whereas the author’s trademark black humour imbues The Executioner’s Song, yet another bizarre character study about a public executioner who prepares for his retirement, and admires for one last time the tools of his trade.
[extract from ‘The Devil’s Jukebox- An Expanded Paul Roland Biography’ by Roberto Curti published in 2018 by Unifaun Productions]
PAINTING OF VINCENT PRICE BY JOEL ROBINSON

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released May 5, 1991

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Paul Roland England, UK

Formerly managed by June Bolan, Paul has been spinning supernatural and historical-themed tales against a backdrop of gothic rock, psych-pop and baroque strings, earning him the sobriquet, ‘The Male Kate Bush' (attributed to former label mate Robyn Hitchcock) ... more

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