Chris Capel - Spent Convictions

I first heard Chris Capel’s music when he opened for my band at a gig in Swansea. I was very impressed with him that night and I could tell that he had experience on the folk circuit with his top quality performance and interesting introductions to each song. I was so impressed that I bought his album, Spent Convictions. Even though I knew how good he was as a solo act, I was not expecting the musical expertise on show on the album. This was by no means a quick demo knocked up to make a few quid at open mic nights but a full professional studio album. The album features Chris on vocal and guitar and also a full compliment of cellos, accordions, hammond organs and melodicas. The album features a range of talented session and guest musicians including backing vocals from Thea Gilmore and drums by Paul Burgess (ex-10cc and Jethro Tull).

Opening track, Five Summer Stories, was one of the highlights of the

set when I saw Chris perform live and it transfers perfectly onto record. Apparently the title of the song is taken from a film of the same name but as Chris explained, this was more of a cult film for movie nerds and he always tries to find someone at his gigs who has also seen it but with no success as of yet.

The main two styles of Chris’ writing are miserable or angry. When he played with us, he offered the crowd a choice for the last song; angry or miserable? You probably won’t be surprised that the unanimous response from the audience in Crowley’s Rock Bar was for angry and Chris played the second track from the album Final Nail. A top quality video is available for this song here, which got me questioning how we managed to get someone this good to open for my band.

Chris is most definitely a protest singer, not just because he has an acoustic guitar and harmonica but because I found his references to Thatcher vs. the miners and many other very evocative of Billy Bragg. His delivery style also tips a peaked cap in this direction with some of the more heart-felt words being spat out with quite some venom. The album contains some brilliant lyrics amongst them, the excellent line, “Find a girl with the taste for a minor key and a treble cleft tattooed behind her ear.” This is an excellent ten track album which I’d recommend to any folk music fan. What also helps is that Chris is such a nice chap as well. The day after his gig in the Masons, Llanelli on 12th August, he phoned me to thank me for arranging the gig and asked me to compliment the pub landlord for having a great set up for him the night before.