Jackie Leven - Gothic Road (Cooking Vinyl)

Davies explains the album concept of the two roads (Royal Road and Road of Poverty and Death) and considers it possibly “poetic smoke and mirrors”. He lists the many pop-culture allusions (Ian Curtis, Dylan, the “Jolene” melody in “Last of the Badmen”), the duet number “Cornelius Whalen” with Ralph McTell about the last Jarrow marcher and the closing piece “Island” by co-producer David Wrench. Benevolent, ironically pointed tenor without rating; closing punchline with the comparison to schoolmate Gordon Brown.