Joe Hodgson is back. This time it is with the very moving new instrumental album ‘Fields of Redemption’ with his guitar taking centre stage. Joe is a musician who was born in Ballymagorry in Northern Ireland and who plays with an intimacy that reflects a life lived on the wilder side, both in emotion and the raw reality. The guitar in Joe Hodgson’s hands doesn’t merely strum or chug along. It speaks, questions, it howls, it caresses, and sometimes even chuckles to itself. Opening with “The Grass is Greener” is an uptempo and engaging number that weaves with a cheerful disposition about its chord sequence, which in turn hints at something a little more significant below its surface veneer of bright and jaunty notes, and manages to lift the spirits gently. “Shapeshifting” is the next number and it muses with stealth, working its way through a subtle change in sound texture, from its easy and laid-back opening sequence to something a little more ominous in tone, a nice change of pace, and as the title would suggest.
“Stick or Twist” is next and is all edgy tension and risk. Very sharp and decisive playing, from a guitarist who has arrived at a crossroads and who knows it. “You I Think Of” is the soulful core of the album, and possibly Joe’s most poignant piece to date. Like much of this album, it is simple but magnificently expressive and seems to take a deeply personal moment and expose it as if by accident, the result of which is something you carry with you long after it has finished. “Give Her What She Wants” injects an added sense of cocksureness and swagger, a bluesy grittiness without ever being overbearingly brash in its execution. “Woman” is a softer, sweeter more romantic and gentle sounding piece. It’s as if you have been let in on a secret. “Since You Had A Hold On Me” has the tension dial turned up once again, more brooding and ominous and all the more potent for it. The music as it moves through to the next two numbers, “Losing It” and “Blocking It Out” moves deeper into a headier groove and there is a sense here of music having translated internal conflict into a noisy and orchestrated beauty. Chaotic but as always, purposeful and never directionless. “Passing Time (Molly’s Song)” gives a little respite from the overall intensity. It is warm and fuzzy and beautifully soft as if as Joe himself croons the words to a loved one, he can feel her embrace returning that feeling of love back to him, taking root and making its home in his heart, quite simply an album highlight and so obviously so for its abundant use of obvious love. A perfect antidote to the discord of the two tracks before it.
“Digging For Dirt” returns us to some grittier fare, Joe spitting and sawing away at the fretboard and perhaps the rawest, the least compromising number on the album. “Picking You Apart” is a similar sound and style, with just a little more flicking on the lick-work and some more mercurial movement through its sequence, and just as fast as Joe’s fingerpicking brought his thoughts together here it seems he is losing them once again. Closing in on our finale, “Ducking and Diving” has a sense of fun to it, as quicksilver runs pick their way playfully and with some level of mischief and just as easily disappear back to whence they came. “Moran’s Dew (Tom’s Song)” is gentle, respectful, almost venerative, and if you close your eyes you can almost feel the warmth of a man showing his love for another. The closing number, “The Ballad of Joe Clarke” rounds off the album with dignity and a sense of pride. A classy way to finish a classy album. Joe Hodgson’s ‘Fields of Redemption’ is a thing of bold beauty and as ever is a raw and honest collection of thoughts that find a home on the fretboard. He is a musician who is both unafraid to go deep and who you suspect never has an uncommitted thought. ‘Fields of Redemption’ is a place to go when you have time and want to hear music that will not let you walk away from it without engaging on some level.
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