Two Tone Testimony

London three-piece band Miraculous Mule release Two Tonne Testimony, their second album. Following on from their 2013 debut Deep Fried and the 2014 mini-album Blues Uzi, brothers Michael J Sheehy (guitar / vocals) and Patrick McCarthy (bass / vocals) along with childhood friend Ian Burns (drums) have taken knife-edged blues, gospel-driven rock ‘n’ roll, and elements of psychedelic soul and stoner / space rock to create a collection of songs for living in troubled times. Written and recorded over the past two years, the album’s themes are proving to be prescient for the shape of the world in 2017. Sound of the Summer starts out as a paean to long, hot sunny days and sticky nights before morphing into a song about civil unrest and the death of protest. Where Monsters Lead was written in response to the rise of far-right demagogues two years before the likes of Trump, Farage and their supporters led us off the edge of a cliff. Daddy Grace calls to mind the conniving ways of a snake- oil salesmen, while They Cut, We Bleed attacks the political establishment for a policy that has everything to do with ideology and nothing to do with bringing down the deficit. For the title track, Sheehy spins a rollercoaster yarn casting himself as a gun-running, drug-dealing, porn-peddling son of Satan who wanders through a world populated by heavily armed outlaw relatives and a religious cult that commits mass suicide. Holy Fever tells a tale of religious hysteria, in which a horny young man finds himself cock-blocked by none other than Jesus Christ. This album draws on substance, humour and soul to deliver a visceral, angry commentary for bleak times. It's rock 'n' roll as salvation!