Henry And The Wolf

I had a most enjoyable night at the Sheep Walk in Leytonstone last night. It started with a "What's Cookin'" gig upstairs, before Mr F and I fell in with a bad crowd at the karaoke downstairs. We ended up being there until the early hours listening to Reginald massacring everything he turned his hand to.

What was cookin' was rock and blues from Henry's Funeral Shoe and headliners Wolf People. I enjoyed them both.

Henry's Funeral Shoe have a terrible name but make a pretty good sound, and a lot of it for two small to medium-sized Welshmen. It is fairly traditional blues rock, similar in style to the Black Keys (with whom they share a label), but they do it well.

Wolf People are clearly capable of being very good indeed, but on the basis of this set I am not sure they are yet more than the sum of their influences. At times it was a bit like listening to the heavier bits of an Island Records' sampler from 1970/71 - which, to be clear, I consider a good thing - a large dose of Free, a bit of 'Liege and Lief' era Fairport, and even the occasional hint of Quintessence and Blodwyn Pig. But they are definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Here is one track from each of their current albums, both available on Amazon and no doubt many other places as well.

"Henry's Funeral Shoe" - Henry's Funeral Shoe (from "Everything's For Sale", 2009)

"Black Water" - Wolf People (from "Tidings", 2010)

Here are Wolf People in Quintessence mode:



And here are the Henry's: