The Mams - Rhondda Street - Album Review

I had the pleasure of receiving the new CD by The Mams this week. Rhondda Street is the follow up to their debut album, Wam Bam, released in 2007 so you can not accuse the band of rushing this album out. Whereas the first album reminded me of the Pet Shop Boys with a hint of Squeeze, this album reminded me of Squeeze with a hint of the Pet Shop Boys. I can’t say that the band has matured between albums, as the boys would argue that they were mature enough to start with but their sound has evolved from the unashamed pop music of the first album to a more subtle sound this time round. The sing-along choruses of Wam Bam, have now been replaced with more introspective songs and cultural statements with a definite country feel to some tracks.

Saying that, opening track, Better Out Than In, does have a sing-along pop chorus similar to tracks on the first album. This song is about The New Drovers Inn, a place where chief lyricist, Jon Treganna, spent many years working behind the bar. This place obviously means a lot to Jon. I went to see his play, Buggerall, a few weeks ago and the first thing I noticed was that the set was an almost exact copy of the Drovers. The themes touched upon in the play also run throughout his music; a small town with no prospects, a graveyard of ambition, as someone once wrote or as the lyrics of second track, Mynydd Mawr puts it, “the jobs have left but the people remain”. This sounds quite bleak to me but the band have a more positive outlook on small town life, having some fun being “Boyos from the land of song”.

Lyrically this album will appeal to Middle Aged Men (MAMs) where this band has a large fan base but the songs about the community spirit and relationships will mean something to everyone. This album is very well produced, due to no small part in the bands’ long time experience in the music business, I could definitely hear some Hepburns guitar coming through (Mams’ guitarist, Matt Jones, was also in the jangly-guitar legends). This is a great album with meaningful lyrics and I can’t wait to hear some of the tracks being played live.