Kingswinford's Jess Silk, Don't Tell Me What To Sing About - EP review
Recently, this writer put out a plea on Twitter asking where all the protest bands were hiding in the modern musical sphere.
It was more out of desperation than anything else given our current social, political and cultural climate.
And waving back kindly was recent The Star Unsigned column act Jess Silk, from Kingswinford - who told us her new EP was ready to be heard.
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And it was just as we asked for. Recorded in a live session, much like her A Good Pair Of Boots Live EP released earlier this year, it's Jess taking a swipe at the world around her and trying to give a platform to the type of music often ignored by the paying masses.
As her spoken introduction to the title song says: "This is a protest song about people protesting about me writing protest songs."
And the lyrics lament: "And they say, 'it's best for everyone if you stop writing protest songs'/'cause there is not one thing you'll ever change."
But Silk kindly sticks two fingers up to that through the channel of her trusty acoustic guitar. It's intimate, it's softly powerful and it aims to speak to as many people as possible.
There is a gravelly, throaty quality to Silk's vocal delivery. When she starts to semi-growl the passion seeps through her music. It whisks you up with her and sucks you into her mindset to raise your fist alongside her.
Is This Poetry? continues the theme as Silk asks all around her what happened to the great lyricists of yesteryear amid the flurry of quickly fizzling out talent show winners. Its pace is frantic as Silk works herself into a frenzy lamenting the music scene she is faced with in the 21st Century.
Stranger On The Tube tells a tale of an awkward situation where a stranger begins to preach hate on public transport and her disapproval of such ideologies is laid bare.
This honest account of the modern world was recorded live at HMV Merry Hill in a Live & local session in association with online Birmingham-based music show RawSound.tv and was produced by Adam Husk.
Listen in and find your new favourite political spokesperson for the forthcoming election.
Rating: 7/10
Jess Silk will be supporting Skalinskis at The Rigger Venue in Newport under Lyme, Staffordshire, on December 29. The new EP is available via her Bandcamp page.
