|
 Probably the number of listeners to his songs ("Songs From No One In Particular 'was reviewed here last year) increased,
otherwise this CD did not come back. Another album that previously
(2011) is released digitally and only now as the official disc sees
light of day. Meanwhile I made a blog full of poems of this London based
singer-songwriter consumed and knowledge "Another
Academy" (2013), an album of spoken word of Charles Bukowski,
where Jeff Bell composed the music for.
Jeff had already convinced me with the previous CD, I wonder what
he's going to bring ... The opening song ("Get The Chains') was
again short, but very successful, with horns and cooperation of a
French group, Le Skeleton Band. The blues "Cast The First Stone"
rocks also nice way with a fine electric guitar, a little Johnny Dowd like
and gets at the end of one line "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"
with. Then we pull cloudy, desolate landscapes folk inside. The
dark, of loneliness drenched ballad "All I See Is You" suddenly does
strongly Nikki Sudden's album "Red Brocade" thinking, with wine
stains on the comforter and all. Laminated built tracks "Victims" and
"Lay Me Down" fans will Vic Chesnutt not fail to impress, I think. It'
hard to believe that Jeff plays all the instruments and sounds
creates itself. We hear a piano and other unexpected sounds in
"Another Year," when writing Jeff got help from a fellow townsman,
the singer Pete Hill. "Say A Prayer" sounds more like a rebellious
discussion with the higher power, instead of a prayer. "Hometown"
even calling the album "Goodbye Joe Russ Tolman recalled: I love
sung once of those close to the microphone, deep hoarse guttural
sounds ... With a huff" Guess It Worked "we reach a sarcastic complaint
traditional blues form addressed to the National Health Service: the care
in England is also a mess! Finally, we are treated to more than nineteen
minutes long bonus track, the sweeping "Wasted Hours (To Be Cont.)",
To which the Australian drummer Ryan Kalkman (from the London band
Mouths) participates.
While still intuitive and quirky put down, imbued with emotional and sometimes sharp lyrics, this album is a bit more accessible and varied
than its predecessor. For the music lover who likes to have some trouble
over to dive for pearls! (Independent)
Translated from Flemish. |
http://www.whisperinandhollerin.co.uk/reviews/review.asp?id=11731
Review: 'BELL, JEFF'
'Turned Every Screw'
- Label: 'Rhythm Of The System' - Genre: 'Alt/Country' - Release Date: 'December 2014'- Catalogue No: 'RSR-002'
| | Our Rating: 8/10 | |
'Turned Every Screw' is the latest album release (his third) from singer songwriter and poet Jeff Bell. Jeff is certainly a man who has a way with words, having written the poems 'I Once Kissed Pavarotti in Dalston' and 'Ok, you can call me an oddist if you like!'; a brilliant attack on the Conservatives (both available to read at: Jeff Bell at Penniless Press.
So, how does 'Turned Every Screw' stand up to wit and wisdom like that? Actually very well. There are twelve tracks on the album (actually thirteen due to the bonus track 'Wasted Hours', all packed full of insightful social comment, and forming eloquent stories taken from real life.
The music varies from jazzy rock, to rock, to ballads and back again, without ever seeming disjointed or having anything that grates. This is perhaps because Jeff has written, recorded and performed everything on the album save for the track 'Get The Chains' which includes French group Le Skeleton and London based Australian drummer Ryan Kalkman from Mouths. As a result, Jeff seems comfortably in his element.
Added to this is Jeff's undeniable talent as a lyricist, being able to evoke images of a London filled with seedy bars, alcohol and the highs and lows of life. The album opens with the jazzy 'Get The Chains', a song that is fairly reminiscent of early T  
In a few short sentences, Jeff is able to convey both a distinct picture and an atmosphere which will resonate with most listeners, and this is his talent, his words are able to produce comfortable feelings and half forgotten memories. Such as on 'All I See is You', an almost funereal balled cataloguing a relationship break: - “You waste me when you taste me, you had me in your palm/ Now the sun don't shine like it used to, since you been gone/ And the spilt red wine on the duvet is now all I see,
Of the memories of you, when you were still with me.”
Overall, whilst this is something that will never translate to the dance floor, it is an excellent album, after all anyone who can throw in the lines: - “I shelter from the rain it the local bar that doesn't feel the same/ I'm drinking down the sediment, to wash away the sentiment.” will always get my vote. This is a perfect album for drinkers and thinkers everywhere.
Review - Nick Browne
|
|
Depeche Mode once had a big hit with an album called Songs
Of Faith And Devotion. Jeff Bell might have done well to call this
one Songs Of Wrath, Emotion And Vengeance. Because that's
exactly what this album is. Tunes such as Guess It Worked and All I
See Is You wreak of experience and a life lived on the tightrope
between joyous hope and eternal frustration. This is a real
Pandora's Box of an album. You want to peek inside and not
knowing whether you'll be stabbed or embraced by the next song
makes the temptation to do so all the more exciting. This is a very
tight set where every note is toughened and sweetened by beautiful
folksy arrangements. **** |
|
Americana UK - Turned Every Screw Review - Dec 2014
http://www.americana-uk.com/cd-reviews/item/jeff-bell-turned-every-screw
Mainstream Country music is the equivalent of TV evangelist’s churches; Bell is more like a one-man ministry preaching in a rough-hewn church where the only polish is the repeated rubbing of threadbare Sunday best suits on the pine pews. His sermons champion love and the soul over the material world, his voice is a rough instrument and it can be traced back to the gospels of Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits and Paul K. It's weather-beaten, pitted with experience and age - on ‘Guess It Worked’ he sounds like he’s at a revivalist meeting trying to conjure up the lord from a jar of spiders. He’s helped out on this record by the French group Le Skeleton Band who do a mean Magic Band impersonation on ‘NHS Blues’ which sounds like a collaboration between Beefheart, Mike Leigh and Benny Hill. There are also traces of funk and jazz on ‘Get the Chains’ a mutant funk, but funk nonetheless and RnB rears it head on ‘Cast the First Stone’ not least when it morphs into ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’.
Bell has an everyman persona and his songs approach universal themes through the personal, he manages to put an individual spin in each song; ‘Another Year’ uses piano as a differentiator, whereas the bulk are predicated on the guitar - ‘I Saw It’ finds its own way with organ being used for punctuation. Bell has a likeable approach and sounds at his best on the relaxed ballads ‘All I See Is You’ and ‘Lay Me Down’ which necessarily focus on him. The songs are spectacular, they don’t aim to be, they are honest and truthful and in a world full of artifice, it is a good quality to have.
Review by David Cowling.
|
Written In Music - Turned Every Screw Review - Dec 2014
WRITTEN IN MUSIC
Tastes differ, but if someone from the first note knows how to pack a punch, it's good for me, and Londoner Jeff Bell succeeds with flying colours. The sordid rockers, "Get The Chains and "Cast The First Stone", the brilliant "All I See Is You", to the beautiful, somber folk - ballads like "Lay Me Down" and "Hometown" prove this in abundance.
Poet, singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jeff Bell was until recently completely unknown to me. Yet he's already had some nice music released, including an album of haunting poems by Charles Bukowski, where Jeff Bell has added music. The man's obstinacy is also evident from his website, where a whole page titled "The Art of Neglect " is dedicated to the stages of disintegration of a garden parked grievously neglected harmonium.
Vocals and lyrics breathe of London, liquor, cigarettes, drink away your heartbreak in dark bars, loneliness and gloom. Think of Bob Dylan, Mark Sandman (Morphine), Ian Siegal or Tom Waits; artists for whom it is also about feeling, rhythm, language, song and voice, and not always to play nice and pleasing.
A large part of the songwriting and arrangements are Bell himself, but he
also has support from the French Le Skeleton Band and Australian drummer Ryan Kalkman, plus on "Another Year", he and fellow Londoner, Pete Hill collaborated together. Sometimes the sound is raw, with derailing blues guitar and blues harp, while the melancholic piano ballad "Another Year" uses the sounds of a cello. Especially in his folk -like ballads opts for Bell somber chords and desolate atmospheres. "Humorous NHS Blues" then describes the discomforts of the hospitals in the UK National Health Service , and the album finishes with the hypnotic meandering 19 minute finale "Wasted Hours".
Bell will, thanks to this album, probably will not go bathing in wealth and fame, but it will certainly find its way into the hearts of many enthusiasts.
(Translated from Flemish).
http://www.writteninmusic.com/roots/jeff-bell-turned-every-screw/lang/nl/ |
Alt Country Forum - Turned Every Screw Review - Dec 2014
ALT COUNTRY FORUM
 One of the definitions of wilfulness is the tendency to follow their own discretion. Within the many gradations that offers such a definition, the London songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bell holds a place near the end of that universe. This self is in the design of his albums and the music that you can hardly call commonplace, but also in the way his albums are distributed. His record company loves it, probably together with Bell, of some confusion by redistributing older albums in a short time. A few weeks ago they did the same with Songs From No One In Particular, published before 2009, and now this happens again with the re-release of Turned Every Screw, originally released as a mini album in 2011 and now includes a number of spirited but jet black songs strongly lean against blues, rock and folk and dark reminiscent of the work of loners as Matthew Ryan, Scott H. Biram and - to a lesser extent - Fink.
Jeff Bell used his guitar in dark songs like Say A Prayer ( four minutes vastgekluisterde desperation ) and the bluesy NHS Blues ( on the complete despair of older people in a retirement warehouse who are written off ) rather than as a tool or as a kind of fillet knife that the equally caustic lyrics occasional extra strength - if that was necessary because Bell has the habit to call things as they are, as in Say A Prayer : "The creator of Cancer , paedophiles and war / Is this the God That you all adore ? " Bell may come out of the corner and cassant damn indignant, but he does it with songs that sound never as a pamphlet. Fortunately, he has an eye for dosage - also harms excess, right? - And he does not run continuously around like a discontented, emotionally shattered soul. All I See Is You is an impressive break up song with a whisper singing Bell (think Chris Eckman who smokes two packs of cigarettes per day) and Lay Me Down, a graceful song about the joys of carelessness. They are two points of near calm, on an unruly album that is hard to tame, but its well worth the effort. |
 At not even thirty five minutes, this is a short, sharp uppercut of an album.
No song sees the four minute mark and indeed, most are lucky to even see it to two. These songs (eleven of them in total) are sharp jabs and uppercuts of anger and frustration, intended to quickly shock you and surprise you and leave you with a feeling of, what the hell was that??
It is as though no one has thought to tell Jeff Bell that there has been such a thing as punk rock and he still has a well of primal fury in him. It is a rough set, then, for sure, but one which is also very heartfelt.
You get the feeling Bell has lived each of these songs as much as composed them. This gives them a depth and truth which is sadly lacking in the sounds of so many of today’s young upstarts.
By Jonathan Muirhead
http://www.isthismusic.com/jeff-bell
|
This is a really good album of roots music that has folk, blues, rock and even a little dark country as influences, from a talented songwriter, multi instrumentalist and possessor of a raw, incredibly expressive vocal style. Believable stories taken from real life that range from powerful driving rock to almost mellow ballads. Nothing is ever smoothed off or bland from this talented performer who probably has Tom Waits as one of his influences but really is totally at home with his own original style that ranges from hard and in your face to reflective haunting as well as sinister haunting! An album of great individuality and no little originality by a talented leftfield performer.
http://www.americanrootsuk.com/august.html
 |
Songs From No One In Particular - Album Review - Undertoneonline.com
Introducing: Jeff Bell by Jack McKeever
Jeff Bell is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from London, and his music is a thorough melting pot of all the genres and influences that seem to have held sway over his own history across the last 50 years of popular music.
Vocally intoning the smokey, deep rumbling spirit of the likes of Tom Waits and occasionally Bob Dylan, sonically Bell’s music sprawls across an interweaving valley of old school blues, folk, rock’n’roll, country and bluegrass.All of this is combined with a lyrical sense that taps into some of the most classicist pop songs sensibilities; the ruminations are simply yet catchy and somewhat universal.Since both James Blunt and Jack Johnson seem to have evaporated into thin air of late, Jeff Bell is likely to be an ample replacement with all his rootsy energy and somewhat easy-going vibes.http://www.undertoneonline.com/introducing-jeff-bell/Albums, http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/jeffbell4
|
Title track ‘ Rome’ sets out the gritty-man’s stall. “The world’s OK…” is smoky as a hickory burner on a smoggy day. Then ‘ Naked’ stumbles in awkwardly, just like the subject. This song is a half dressed girl just woken by the sun. Downward stepping chords add moody emotion – and a half-buzzed harmony provides piquancy.
‘Low Key Affair’ is equally sad-baked -but with pangs of light provided by guitar. That inebriated voice is racked with real guilt. This song wrings you dry. ‘Only a Footstep Away’ is lightly jazzy and gently sweeps over you like a slight haze. The lyrics are interesting and memorable.
Then ‘Damn You’ crashes in. This is a rockier affair. A blues harp ruffles the edges and the beat bumps provocatively against your rear. A growling guitar adds a lick and a snarl, and goes well with the gravel dust voice.
‘Never’ is slighter benumbed. An astute lyric rings out across the painful gasping of the sounds. But the hobo comes out again for ‘Like Blood. A finger picked tune follows the gritty voice meekly, before an electric guitar gushes in with excitement and adds the acid. This is a high point.
‘Phoney World’ is – perhaps appropriately – the least blueish track on the album. But ‘Faith’ restores the order, with an unsettling chord progression and lamenting vocals. This type of song is where the ruinous voice of Bell weaves a special magic. It is rough like sandpaper against thigh, and as acid as vinegar on the shelf. This is a stand-out song, with the kind of jaw-dropping guitar solo at the end that will make your hair stand on your head.
‘I See’ is the most ‘Rolling Stones’ sounding track on the disc. This will be one hellishly addictive barnstormer in any live show. Keen guitars slide menacingly across the flea-bitten rhythms and sexy vocals.
The album finishes with ‘Everything’ which reflects the sentiment that we started with in ‘Rome’.
|
