The Boggs Forts by: Kev Lavery Mon:30-Jul-07 Label: Gigantic Year: 2007 WB rating 50 out of 100

When naming a band there are certain things that must be considered: style of music, lyrical content, seriousness of the band and sound, connotations of said name, etc. There are bands that get away with ridiculous names because they themselves are quite ridiculous. The Boggs, however, are not that sort of band. Basically, The Boggs are a stupid name and a lot of talk; Forts delivers to some extent but not enough to make up for their moniker and the fact that if someone said “do you like The Boggs?” you would assume they were asking your opinion on a collection of faeces, wetlands or slangily English toilets.

Jason Friedman, the only staple member in The Boggs ever-shifting line-up, is obviously intensely influenced by Shane MacGowan [The Pogues], and with good reason. MacGowan is an incredible song-writer who manages to inject years of emotion into the slurs of genius that vomit from his blistered maw. Musically though, Friedman shares little with MacGowan aside from aping vocal style and naming his band in rebellious fashion – The Pogues being a shortened and Anglicised version of a phrase that basically means ‘kiss my arse’.

Friedman falls in and out of tune all over Forts in a manner that is either put-on or as a result of a deficit of singing talent – you would think that with the rotating line-up they’d found someone who could hold a tune instead of strangling one. It’s a shame really because the music on Forts is actually quite good. It has shades of Mellow Gold/Odelay-era Beck, a small splash of The Pogues, with a bit of The Dandy Warhols circa 2000, and a fair portion of that female background vocals, party-time, rolling indie rock. The songs are often concise, generally well-arranged, and, aside from Friedman’s vocals, well-performed – it’s mind-boggling that The Boggs would let themselves down so obtusely especially with the band’s only constant.

The title track gradually opens the album, starting slowly with incomprehensible rhythmic noises before building. Here it is just a riff-based jam with moderately incoherent lyrics. As such The Boggs have a lot in common with The Archie Bronson Outfit, a band who are quoted as their “allies”. Both groups seem to lack the necessary decision making skills to produce albums that do not have several glaring faults; both have really poorly trained singers; both miss the mark.

‘Arm In Arm’ is good; ‘One Year On’ is okay; ‘After The Day’ is a nice little acoustic respite; ‘Bookends’ is average; ‘So I So You’ and ‘Poor Things’ are passable riff-based rock tunes; ‘Melanie in the White Coat’, probably Friedman’s least in tune song, is still okay. Basically everything is just okay on Forts and it’s all as a result of Friedman. I don’t really understand how the founder and only stable member of a band, who manages to rope in artists from many other mildly successful groups to play beside him, can be their unequivocal let down. If it wasn’t for Friedman, The Boggs and Forts wouldn’t exist but, if it wasn’t for Friedman, this would be quite an enjoyable album.