Spitting Daggers is second album from The Sparrow and the Workshop (Facebook/ MySpace) and it does not fall where many second albums do. Even from the album title, you can tell that this album isn’t going to be one of ‘happy-clappy’ joy and first hand merriment. This album is the calm after the storm but a storm in a tea cup it is not. It’s about rejuvenation, experiencing an epiphany; an pivotal moment that requires a great helping of steely determination plus a fuck load of anger and a smattering of anguish.

In some ways, Jill O’Sullivan’s prophetic warbles mixed with erratic guitar and ethereal rhythms create a fairly scathing evaluation of past relationships and a positive look towards the future. However, tracks such as Old Habits, Soft Sound of Your Voice and Against the Grain suggest a love that was lost due to suffocation; much like in Of Mice and Men, and bring to mind the regrets that followed retrospectively. In Against the Grain there’s a sense of despair and also strength of mind, O’Sullivan sings in her American drawl ‘I’m lost in the game/ my vision is weaker but my hunger stays the same’.

There is definitely a spectral feel throughout the album, a feeling of ghostly absence- not from the music itself but from the subject matter of the songs; quite possibly the specter of the life she once led that is not apparent now. Snakes in the Grass captures the bucolic, idyllic nature of the angsty folk rock trio’s sound. The lazy harmonies and rhythms call for this song to be on each and every person’s summer playlist this year, quite possibly with a Pimm’s in one hand and a Marlboro Light in the other, or maybe something a little more rustic- let’s say a pint of Carlsberg and a Mayfair instead.

If you thought the album was just a self medicating mix of folk and angst, you’d be wrong. Our Lady of Potatoes offers the true account of an Irish woman, Marie-Louise O’Murphy, mistress to Louis XV, through timid guitars, roaming bass lines and anecdotal lyrics. One wonders whether O’Sullivan can sympathise and relate to this 18th century dame thus proving that love, and all that it entails, is timeless.

Some critics have scathingly commented that Faded Glory punts for an anthem but falls at the first hurdle and delivers little. The point was missed completely; I honestly don’t think that Sparrow and the Workshop expect to be playing their songs at Wembley in the next few years. It’s an anthem for your headphones on the bus, not one that you sing along to with hordes of people after paying £35 per ticket for the most impersonal gig you’ll ever experience. It’s meant to evoke a feeling of despair which soon progresses into positivity and optimism for the future.

All in all, Sparrow and the Workshop have succeeded in creating an album that provides an emotional outlet for themselves as well as allowing it to stir up similar feelings for their listeners; feelings of true sanguinity.

[BUY] Sparrow & The Workshop – Spitting Daggers on CD @ Rough Trade | Amazon
[BUY] Sparrow & The Workshop – Spitting Daggers on MP3 @ Amazon | iTunes

Sparrow and the Workshop – Snakes in the Grass
Spitting Daggers Album Sampler by sparrowandtheworkshop