ALBUM REVIEW: TV Smith – Lockdown Holiday (Easy Action Records)
As frontman, singer and main songwriter with original punks The Adverts, TV Smith wrote one of punk’s most enduring anthems in Gary Gilmore’s Eyes.
There’s much more to him than that though. He’s been making music for more than 40 years, and Lockdown Holiday is his 16th album.
So it’s good to report that the record – conceived, written and recorded during the spring and summer of 2020 – finds him on fine form.
It’s all the more impressive as it’s an album he never intended to make. At the beginning of March he was about to embark on a UK tour with Stiff little Fingers, and had more than 50 gigs planned for the rest of the year.
After only three dates the tour was abandoned, so he headed home, and, as the country went into lockdown, he and his partner fell ill with the Covid-19 virus, after a stranger sneezed near them at a motorway service station.
He watched from his sickbed as the Government’s mismanagement of the worsening situation got worse, and once he began to feel well enough he did what he does best – turned his thoughts and feelings into songs.
Recorded in his home studio, the album is just TV Smith, his wonderfully lived-in voice and his acoustic guitar, with the result being a collection of personal, heartfelt songs.
The opening The Lucky Ones sees him in reflective mood about catching the virus, and how selfish it made people who complained about their ruined holiday plans while refugees were forgotten about.
The title track examines at the positive sides of having so much unexpected free time as the world went into lockdown, while Bounce Back looks forward to life after the pandemic – whenever that might be.
Send In The Clown is a wry observation on the prime minister whose failings have seen the UK lurch from one disastrous mis-step to another, while I Surf The Second Wave sees him adopt the persona of the virus itself, sinisterly warning: “I will choose my moment, but I will rise again.”
The Race For Last Place is a reflection about our never-ending quest for more material possessions, and the closing Going Nowhere Fast pretty much sums the year 2020 for most of us.
As a document of a life-changing year which has been awful for so many reasons – losing loved ones, livelihoods and freedoms we previously took for granted – this is an essential album. 8/10.
