Bad Boat | ‘Lonely Doom’

Metalireland has been writing about Bad Boat for a while now. It’s partly been an effort to understand how they’ve made such great music in the face of what seems unsurmountable odds (being generally too pissed to do anything else), and partly just to reflect the fact that music is so brilliant. It deserves general acclaim and it will be remembered, if indeed only by a localised few, as something pretty special. It’ll have to be, because there wont be any more of it. They’ve just split up.

That was inevitable. But it’s an ironic, bittersweet and utterly predictable irony that this document of their self destruction is the best cd they’ve ever put out. Considering the favour both their demo and album found, that’s saying something. It’s typical of them.

What strikes you at first is the heaviness. This is less doomed rock and more underground doom. The opening title track gives vocalist Tom Clarke the space to squeal like he never has before. It’s like Paul Rodgers doing sludge. ‘Lonely Doom’ sounds exactly like you’d expect it to. Sorry, brow beaten, down at heel and half cut. It’s classic ‘Boat.

Their affection for unheard proto-doom gems (the real underground, you might say) shines through in the choice of a little known cover - Spirit’s 1968 offering ‘Mechanical Man’ - which provides yet more slow vocal brilliance. It’s later section, with the intriguing ‘Once… in my younger days…’ lyric, is almost psychedelic. With a throat that sounds like it’s full of mucky bong water, Clarke’s delivery is on the other side of this reality. You’ve got to hear it.

The closers come slightly closer back to dark doom rock normality, Belfast style. ‘Lucky To Be Breathing’ probably has as much Cult or Danzig about it, albeit within their own framework, while ‘Uphill Struggle’ brings things full circle with a Sabbath tilt. It’s only four tracks long. Within them though, Bad Boat reaffirm the monged songwriting prowess that they’ve consistently shown - and blasted live, regardlesss of whether they even remembered their instruments - over the last six years.

So pick it up, because they’re gone now, and you may come to love this in the same way they obviously dig that hoary Spirit vinyl forty years after the fact. It’s hard to imagine a better epitaph for one of this town’s best and most honest bands-cum-fuckups, who did nothing more than sing about what they felt and of course made brilliant music in doing nothing more than that. It’s all anyone should do. This cd’s an example. Fuck your high concepts and dressing up, because this is fuelled by nothing more than Buckfast and misery. And it’s damn near perfect because of it.

Ciaran Tracey ::: 13/04/09