Album Review: A Lazarus Soul, No Flowers Grow In Cement Gardens

It’s been five years since A Lazarus Soul’s universally acclaimed The D They Put Between The R And L wholly captured the essence of contemporary Dublin, warts and all. Way past time for another album, so. Fortunately, ALS skipper, the Kildare-based Brian Brannigan, has been busy traipsing the Bog of Allen, scribbling a book of songs that continue his rich vein of form.

Recorded over four intensive days at Miracle Studios in Rennes with the rest of the band– Anton Hegarty, Julie Bienvenu and Joe Chester – they have created ten songs possessing the fire and punch of a long-caged animal, freshly released. While the record will be labelled folk, equally pivotal is the influence of Mark E. Smith. Indeed, the album title is derived from a line in The Fall’s ‘Psykick Dancehall’.

Nor is it for nothing that Matt Johnson has invited ALS to support The The at Collins Barracks this summer. From the former is derived an adept, perceptive eye, coupled with a refusal to be musically limited; whilst from the latter is inherited an ability to wrap even the most jaundiced matter in catchy melodies (police brutality in ‘Black Maria’, corporal punishment in ‘Factory Fada’).

Packed too, it is, with an assortment of characters as gloriously vivid as they are diverse: Moore Street traders Bridie and Tessie in ‘The Dealers’; brutal Mr. Power and the hero Maguire in ‘Factory Fada’; wild man Ten Past and the entire town of Prosperous on the razzle in ‘Wildflowers’. Elsewhere, the Marina Carr-inspired lead single, ‘The Flower I Flung Into Her Grave’, encapsulates the core of the album – a reflection on the spirit of humanity, our trials and travails, and the necessity to survive them.

9/10

No Flowers Grow In Cement Gardens is available to order from bohemiarecords.ie