Leatherface – Minx

The next instalment in my treck through the legendary Leatherface’s back catalogue sees me checking out Minx, the album that follows the point where I stopped listening for real, Mush. Having said that the majority of the tracks feel really familiar due to repeated listens of Live albums at the time and as such, there’s very little that’s completely new to me on Minx.

 

Even so, it’s a quality album and I’m not sure why I lost enthusiasm after the aforementioned Mush, maybe the perceived critical acclaim and the move to a more commercial sound played a part. This is a standard collection of mid 1990’s era Leatherface. It’s slower, folkier and less immediate. However lyrically, it’s up there with their earlier work as Frankie croons his North Eastern world-view philosophy and most of the time you can hear what he’s saying.

‘Evil that Men Do’ is a chugging anthem, ‘Books’ is a breathless live stalwart and ‘Dustbin Modo’ is a throwback to Cherry Knowle and by far the best of the songs I’m unfamiliar with. Best of all is the more considered ballad (by Leatherface’s standards anyway) ‘Pale Moonlight’ where Frankie laments on the tortures of life and dances with the Devil in the pale moonlight. I’d heard it before, but the up tempo live version never had the impact of the album version in all its folk-core glory.

Not a great album by Leatherface standards, but in 2013 it would be in the top five albums released this year. Give it a listen, you seriously can’t go wrong, then dig out ‘Cheery Knowle’ and ‘Fill Your Boots’.