Billy Bragg: Tooth And Nail

English troubadour Billy Bragg first cleaved his way into public consciousness as an anthemic political activist in seriously troubled times. Times are still troubled but, on the evidence of this 13th studio album (his first since 2008’s Mr. Love And Justice), the former firebrand has mellowed considerably.

Recorded in the South Pasadena studio of producer Joe Henry, who helmed the last Lisa Hannigan record, the most radical thing about Tooth And Nail is the change of direction. Now aged 55, Bragg sounds beleaguered, but still far from broken, on these 12 heartfelt, musically straightforward, country and blues songs.
Billy was here before, mind, on his 1998 collaboration with Wilco on the Americana collection Mermaid Avenue. Although he delivers a soulful cover of Woody Guthrie’s ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’, his original material isn’t as polemical as usual. There’s the ominous warning of ‘There Will Be A Reckoning’, and caustic sideswipes at capitalists, politicians and other “self-proclaimed smartest people in the room,” but the menu here predominantly features introspective songs of love, loss and redemption.
‘No-one Knows Nothing Anymore’ finds him pondering that eternal existential question, “What if there’s nothing/ No big answer to find/ What if we’re just passing through time?” The gospel-tinged ‘Do Onto Others’ reiterates his life philosophy and the melancholic ‘Goodbye, Goodbye’ – up there with the best songs he’s ever penned – is destined to be a tear-jerking funeral favourite.
Elsewhere, there’s a real playfulness to the lyrics. On the jaunty ‘Handyman Blues’, he apologises to his lover for his failures in the DIY department, but argues convincingly that he’s “a writer not a decorator”: “I’m not any good at pottery/ So let’s lose a ‘t’ and just shoot back the ‘e’/ and I’ll find a way to make my poetry/ build a roof over our heads.”
All told, Tooth And Nail is a milestone in Bragg’s impressive career.