Shoreham date as band offers songs of "outsiders, the feared and the fearful"

Brighton band Bird In The Belly are back with their own brand of Folk Noir, promising songs of outsiders, the feared and the fearful.

On October 30 they unveiled their fourth studio album Only Dogs as Friends. They play Shoreham’s Ropetackle on November 22.

Their journey as a band began in 2018 when they trawled folk archives for little-known songs and long-forgotten lyrics and revitalised them in The Crowing.

Now, four years on from their apocalyptic-themed third album After the City and a MOJO Top 10 Album of the Year, they are offering their fourth release which variously champions outsiders, exposes con artists and recoils from others’ dark deeds.

Bird in the Belly comprises Laura Ward and Adam Ronchetti of duo Hickory Signals with Ben ‘Jinnwoo’ Webb and multi-instrumentalist Tom Pryor.

Ben said: “We wanted to focus on the stories of outsiders – people who have been feared or were fearful. As always, we tried to find overlooked stories and songs and this album is very character driven.”

A spokesman said: “Recorded at Studio 95 in Brighton, the impeccably crafted, deliciously Gothic album is a mix of original lyrics or lyrics adapted from poems and broadside ballads and original melodies variously created by Pryor, Webb and Ward. It spirals unhindered through subtle textures and switching tempos in songs that range from the stripped back to the cinematic.

“The arresting album cover depicts characters and creatures from the songs, the models wearing impressive, if disquieting, masks made by band members Ronchetti and Webb.

“Through 12 diverse tracks they parade a melange of misfits from unfortunate and misguided folk to the downright evil and some of the biggest criminals of their day.

“The opening title track, written by Webb, is a sparse and percussive number straight from their home town of Shoreham-by-Sea. It tells the true story of burglar John O’Hara, shot dead while fleeing the Manor House. When no one could identify the body, it was put in a glass coffin in the Red Lion Inn to see if any patrons recognised him. But it was only when his dog came and sadly sat beside the coffin that locals were able to work out who the deceased man was. Pryor’s spirited violin and Ronchetti’s rhythmic bodhran alongside Webb and Ward’s unflinching vocals get the album off to a lively start.

“Another track from the band’s home town is I Once Built a Boy – also written by Webb with extracts from Alfred Tennyson’s poem Rizpah. The haunting, harrowing song tells the story of James Rook who stole half a sovereign from a mail carrier and was hanged for his crime and left on display at the local gibbet. His devoted mother returned nightly to the gibbet and retrieved his body piece by piece, then rebuilt and buried him in Shoreham’s St Nicholas churchyard.

“Elsewhere the slower pace and harmonies of Old Holborn perfectly depict the covert assignations that went on under the roof of Margaret Clap in the 1720s when she opened her home to LGBTQ+ people to use as a molly house until a raid led to her arrest and imprisonment.

“But Clap’s actions were innocuous compared to those of baby farmer and mass murderer Amelia Dyer whose story is told in the rousing number Hen’s Egg. Dyer took children off the hands of desperate unmarried women for a fee, saying she would bring them up… and then threw them into the Thames. It is thought she may have killed as many as 400 children making her a candidate for Britain’s most prolific serial killer.

“In one of the stand-out tracks on the album (medley by Pryor, lyrics by Webb, with extracts from Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies), Webb’s vocal has just the right angsty, raw tone for the tale while Ward’s voice tempers it and flute flows through.”