Album Review: Billy Bragg - Tooth & Nail

Billy Bragg

Even though still visible via his political opinions, the anniversary edition of the Mermaid Avenue/Woody Guthrie albums and even a Q&A appearance during a small-scale tour here, it's actually five years since the last new Billy Bragg missive of socialism of the mind and heart.

Tooth & Nail skews more toward the reflective than polemic. It's mostly a simpler, softer Bragg. A lot of this could be put down to producer, singer-songwriter Joe Henry. He assembled the band and encouraged the singer in Bragg, when maybe even he has a problem with that notion. All live vocal takes, he's no crooner, but there is a feeling of him working with the band and being comfortable with it.

Probably go past the previewing Handyman Blues, it's a bit forced in its similes – with Bragg's broad accent making it a bit more Chas'n'Dave than Sam & Dave. Better are tunes like No One Knows Anything Anymore, and places where Bon Iver sideman Greg Leisz's pedal steel makes it head to the western country rather than England's counties. It's not quite tears in the beer, but there is a twang to it.

There's still some humanist politics, of course. I Ain't Got No Home is a Guthrie leftover that fits, while There Will Be A Reckoning is well into Springsteen's common man seeking karma territory. But there's always a joy and hope in Bragg's words and music, Tomorrow's Going To Be A Better Day a typically optimistic final thought. Despite the setting, it's still a Billy Bragg record: an affectionate hug, the tea's brewing, occasional proletariat battle hymn.