LOZ BRIDGE AND THE BOX SOCIAL: Witches EP

Loz Bridge is a talent I’ve been fortunate enough to come across many times, making plain my admiration for him both as songwriter and performer. Thus it’s rather obvious that his debut EP is going to become a favourite part of my collection, especially as the titular Witches is, in my opinion, the best thing he’s written yet. We’ve all been trapped in a mind numbing office job at some point, but I for one have never viewed it quite the same since having a gander through Loz’s twisted window on the world. Make no mistake this is a song that would sit proudly on albums by the likes of Lupen Crook, Louden Wainwright and even Tom Waits. It is, in short, the perfect introduction to this young man’s music.

Things make a change with China, a stomping, swampy, blues that sounds great with the slight echo on the recording here, giving it a sense of history. Propelled by The Box Social, Andy Booth on (double) bass, drummer Matt E and Andrew Foster (an impressive young songwriter in his own right, who you’ll hear more about in the future) on banjo and guitar, we’re dragged through this raucous bar room vibe into the much more low key November, whose air of melancholy makes you want to cosy up in front of a roaring fire while the rain lashes down on the windows. From here, the tender Sarah and The Wolves shows that Bridge is as adept at gently plucking the emotions as he is at bombarding them. There’s the faintest hint of Thom Yorke and, by default, Buckley in the vocals here, which shows just how good this guy is!

The last track here, By The River, has followed Loz from his former incarnation as front man of Suburbian, where the song was like a dark, haunting version of a Snow Patrol track, to here, where it has a whiff of the South about it. You can almost see yourself on the shores of the Mississippi, watching the sun go down in this modern day Robert Johnson tale. Like I said before, we’re big fans of Loz Bridge before, so expect to hear more about this fella in the future!

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