(2020) Nikki Sudden - The Bible Belt


Review:
Fully Remastered recordings of the second and arguably most important solo Nikki Sudden album. Features Dave Kusworth and soon to be Waterboys; Mike Scott and Anthony Thistlethwaite. Redesigned with deluxe gatefold sleeve with expanded photos for the time and notes from Nikki’s diary about recording the album plus the original Colour version of the LP cover (issued in monochrome originally in 1982 ). Includes the classic and fan favourite track Chelsea Embankment sung sublimely by ‘Lizard’. Bible Belt was the template and springboard for the forming of the Jacobites. In founding Swell Maps, the post-punk prefacing Birmingham art-snots, Nikki Sudden and his drumming brother Epic Soundtracks charted new territory for racket and corrosive guitar. But after folding Swell Maps at the dawn of the ’80s, Nikki Sudden plowed through another decade’s worth of terrifically fertile ground. Drawing on his devotion to the Rolling Stones and T. Rex-alongside guitarist Dave Kusworth as Jacobites, plus a cheekily named cohort of British sidemen-Nikki Sudden cut a string of raw, inspired rock ‘n’ roll records, etched with double edged travel melancholia and hard-bitten punk dejection. Nikki Sudden’s second LP, released in 1983 by Flicknife Records, marked his first collaboration with writer/guitarist Dave Kusworth, the alliance destined to bring Jacobites to record buying publics on both Atlantic coasts. On The Bible Belt, a diverse clutch of Sudden songs stands in rock reverence to Sudden saints, from Bowie slink and Dylanesque strum to the mandolin post-punk of “Missionary Boy.”





Tracklist:
1. Gold Painted Nails [02:02]
2. English Girls [03:21]
3. Cathy [02:28]
4. Chelsea Embankment [02:15]
5. Bethlehem Castle [03:43]
6. The Road Of Broken Dreams [05:33]
7. Six Hip Princes [04:03]
8. Out Of Egypt [05:48]
9. The Angels Are Calling [02:43]
10. Missionary Boy [02:17]
11. The Only Boy In Heaven [04:26]
12. Six Hip Princes [05:03]
13. Missionary Boy [03:24]
14. Cathy [02:30]
15. The Angels are Calling [02:34]
16. Bethlehem Castle [03:43]
17. Feels so Right [03:08]
18. Out Of Egypt [05:18]
19. Every Girl Cuts me in Half [04:13]
20. Gold Painted Nails [03:09]
21. Unknown [02:23]
22. The Only Boy in Heaven [05:21]


Media Report:
Genre: post-punk
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits