Victor Wainwright - Victor Wainwright & The Train (LP Vinyl)

It had to be a train. The name of Victor Wainwright's new band - and the sleeve image of their debut album - is also the most fitting of metaphors. In music folklore, the train might have associations with the freight-hopping bluesmen of yore, but with this restless boogie-woogie innovator stoking the furnace, this latest project is a charging locomotive - surging forward, crashing through boundaries of genre, sweeping up fresh sounds and clattering headlong past the doubters. At a sweet-spot in his career, where most established stars would rest on their laurels, Victor Wainwright & The Train instead rips up all that has gone before. These twelve tracks are originals in every sense, written by Wainwright, pricking up ears in a sterile music industry and stretching the concept of roots in bold directions. The result is an album that walks a tightrope between scholarly respect and anarchic irreverence.

1 Healing
2 Wiltshire Grave
3 Train
4 Dull Your Shine
5 Money
6 Thank You Lucille
7 Boogie Depression
8 Everything I Need
9 Righteous
10 I'll Start Tomorrow
11 Sunshine
12 That's Love to Me