"A perfect combination of music and magic, which hasn't stopped playing around here since I heard it for the first time. Turn the volume up and press play, please"

- Phonographme

"Hands down, one of the most interesting, inventive, and eclectic albums that I’ve heard all year"

- Mesmerised

"As much a down-home celebration of its musical roots as a pioneering venture into uncharted territories'

- Obscure Sound

"Proof that genre boundaries are meant to be challenged"

- The Further

"Elements of new wave and disco, art rock and country... serious work of serious musicians"

- Indie Dock

“Unapologetically bold and vibrantly poppy... an anthemic testament to an outlaw art rock vision blended with undaunted pop sensibility”

- Music Arena

"A Pop Rock Genre-Blending Masterpiece!"

- JPG Chief

"Varied and imaginative, engaging from start to finish... a fascinating journey through a vast range of genres and styles, unified in a powerful overall vision"

- Artisti Online

“Authentic and powerful… It's a musical masterpiece”

- Iggy Magazine

Produced by The Miller Test and John Winfield

Recorded, mixed and mastered by John Winfield

and

Engineered by Al Harle

at

Big Jelly Studios, Ramsgate, and Nelson’s Place, Broadstairs

Artwash by Tom and Poppy Alkin (thank you)

Cover image photo by Ben Nickless

CROWS ON THE SCAFFOLD

She said, hey Preacherman, I picked you out a lover

And what I mean is for you two to have each other

Might stand by the window

Listen to the dissonant bells

Ain’t it just like her with a letter from my mother

Naming foreign parts she wants me to discover

Turn the light out, Sparkle

Dark like your occult uncle

I don’t wanna walk a road so travelled

Gonna hang here with the crows on the scaffold

She said, hey Loverboy, I think I caught you sleeping

And little wonder with the company you’re keeping

Half the way I came

Halfway through the game

Halfway sick on your reputation, glitter and fame

You better, Babydoll, be eating up your cabbage

Don’t know no other bro could come and do your damage

Those crazies, God save me

Fiddle a bit, loosen up

Live a little baby

Got faith like she won it in a raffle

Up under the crows on the scaffold

The doctors made me crazy

Don’t you know that they hate me?

You saw right

It’s alright

Make sure you shut the door tight

I think the answer’s this

Dangerous

Amorous pythoness

It ain’t that we could stop the planet

Can’t be any worse now can it

Maybe later on we’ll go where no one knows ya

Big sacrifices and a bag of that ambrosia

The fascist bastards insist

On a baptist gang

On a slapped wrist

It’s hard to function when they’re puncturing your lumber

And those pornographers have really got your number

Forgive me!

Outlive me!

Live a bit and loosen up

And be a little with me

Before they load us on a truck like cattle

Pretty slim picking for the crows on the scaffold

When there’s one last battle

All the bones gonna rattle

With the crows on the scaffold

Going down, down, down

Going home

LIKE A STRANGER

Love me like a stranger

Put me in moral danger

Kill the lights and rearrange the solar system

She ain’t listening

Done existing

Missing ‘em not at all

Not till I believe in my soul

Love me like a devil

Rejecting of the Sabbath rebel

Put ya hands up spirit level

They ain’t talking

Dead girl walking

Your consent is not what’s meant at all

Don't you see when something wasn't meant at all?

Not till I believe in my soul

Love me like a widow

Hanging from your window

Smoking ash and weeping willow

Beating retreat

Down on Blue Street

Innocent is not what’s meant at all

Don't you see when something wasn't meant at all?

Not till I believe in my soul

Not until I believe in the moon

The stars, the Milky Way

And Leda

Andromeda

Save your stories for the juries

Martyrdom

A thousand glories

Love me like no other

No sister, no brother

On the lam and undercover

Tell you something

It’s a dumb thing

Compliments are not what’s meant at all

Don’t you see when something wasn’t meant?

You want me to admit it?

Yeah, I took the rent and spent it all

Love me like a stranger

Take it from the manger

To the cross, it never changes

When expecting resurrection

Heaven sent is not what’s meant at all

Don't you see when something wasn't meant at all?

Not till I believe in my soul

COUNTRY SLEEP

Hit me up brother with your sacred fix

Another deck to shuffle

One that contradicts this reading:

The Lovers lying bleeding

Bittersweet corner with a tear to push

Cards stacked in the gutter like a busted flush

The Moon red and fallen with the wounded

From Bonn to Beijing

The protest raging

In colour staging

Av chi

Is that true?

They’re raising tempests

In Maine and Memphis

Maintaining temperatures

Nothing that you can do

No river ever ran so deep

Future wasn’t nothing but a mother love and country sleep

Kiss me on the terrace while the blue light shines

Everybody howling out their moonlight minds

So hateful, dumb and unfaithful

Ain’t no use your blowing off a no-good crowd

Better step it on up

Better play it out loud

For choosing holes

To put the blues in

Arles to Aden

The flower fading

With no persuading

Av chi

Is that true?

They’ve left the light on

In Hume and Huyton

The powersight on

Nothing that you can do

No rock ever cut so deep

Future wasn’t nothing but a mother love and country sleep

Lille, London, Lima

Prepare the dreamer

For Hiroshima

Av chi

Is that true?

Your Ganges broken

On Thorpe-le-Soken

They’re fully woken

Nothing that you can do more

No rumour ever sunk so deep

Have you heard about the mother love and country?

Left a message

Didn’t know it would keep

What d’you think about the mother love and country?

Said she’d come again

Didn’t say she’d come cheap

Future wasn’t nothing

But a mother love and country sleep

LONG WRONG WAY

I roll in drunk

Unpack the trunk

You in the corner there

Yes of course you are

Step out the rain

I got champagne

In a torn-up quarter here

Of the courtyard

Shot of novocaine all liquorice-ish

Never known what kind of drink this is

Dollar’s sweet

Just can’t compete

Goths sitting in the kitchen

Working on material

To numb the pain

I won’t complain

And she ain’t no different

No, but she’s ethereal

Cellar heaving where the dim mist is

Never known what kind of dream this is

Wash your hands little runaway

Meet as planned, put the gun away

Don’t you understand? Reason gone away?

No seat

No hand

No sir

No way

Nobody could have stopped her

Somebody call the doctor!

And what was meant we couldn’t say

We gone a long wrong way

Little Susan

Got Ritalin

Smoothes her loose tongue

Who’s she kidding?

Badmouthing

Deadnaming

Overweight on body shaming

Line ‘em up to ride all night

Set old fashioned fires alight

Got no detail

Got no wedding band

Were I not so tired I would dismiss this myth

Never known what kind of disease this is

SIN IN QUESTION

Drifting on a sunset

Asking are we done yet?

What have we made?

Dancing to our own design

Cut along the dotted line

Be not afraid

In the Mirrorball girl

Too bad for this world

Play the guitar with a mere suggestion

Pay at the bar for the sin in question

Pray to the stars

Let them know the mess you’re in

Eternity- no certainty

It’s gotta be

Screaming and shouting is heavenly

Strange I should doubt what you’re telling me

With that heart on your wrist

Too sad to resist

Play the guitar with a mere suggestion

Pay at the bar for the sin in question

Pray to the stars

Let them know the mess you’re in

So suddenly

Abundantly

It’s gotta be

It’s gotta be

It’s gotta be

QUARANTINE HOTEL

Going downtown just to feed my family

Gotta get my head around a pretty little memory

Feels kind of blue like keeping on the ebony

Laying down news of a billionaire felony

Selling your dreams

You know damn well how wrong it seems

In the Quarantine Hotel

Dog-tired fell asleep by riverside

Hog-wired quite a party on the other side

Nobody there don’t believe in a democide

Nobody care when I tell ‘em how the love has died

Message your genes with the shower gel

Gotta keep it clean

For the Quarantine Hotel

Got a machine, got a magic spell

Living the dream in the wishing well

You not seen?

Can’t you tell?

Where you been, Quarantine Hotel?

Up close with the preacher and the heiress

I’m dosing like it’s ten of us and airless

Dreamt I shot the little skinny millionairess

When she said I’d own nothing then I really couldn’t care less

Inbetween gonna hurt like hell

See what you mean

About the Quarantine Hotel