With his distinctive raspy voice and armed with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, Mike Noga’s second solo album plays from start to finish as a thoroughly enjoyable contemporary folk record, casting himself as a balladeer in the troubadour sense.

All nine songs presented here were recorded over a two day period, and most are the first or second takes, consequently The Balladeer Hunter retains a certain level of energy that comes from a live performance, an urgency that is evident even in the record’s most laidback moments.

Noga has stated that he made the album as a reaction to the slick, heavily-produced music that appears on our airwaves, which makes sense when considering the sparse arrangements on show here. His previous band, The Gentlemen of Fortune, was a much more electric affair, but this time around he stripped the band down to just their rhythm section, with Pat Bourke, from Dallas Crane, on bass and Gus Agars, from The Gin Club, on drums. This also helps to produce some moments of tension, such as the album opener “M’Belle”, with is executed with menacing restraint, recalling early Bad Seeds.

Another musician present is violinist Jen Anderson from Weddings, Parties, Anything, whose contributions on songs like “Eileen” and “A Long Week” bring an extra layer of sophistication, her melodies adding a slight gypsy flavour, similar to Scarlett Rivera’s parts on Bob Dylan’s 1975 album Desire. It is also a fitting collaboration as, particularly on the upbeat numbers, the material here shares a similar level of abandon in the vocal delivery and choppy acoustic guitar work to WPA.

Album highlights are “Ballad of an Ordinary Man”, “Rothko” and the extremely catchy “Piss on a Butterfly”, with its stream of conscious lyrics and pop culture references, Noga sounds like he’s having a lot of fun defying any preconceptions of him as simply a rock n’roll drummer, amid a flurry of jangly guitars and harmonicas.

With this record Noga has created a strong piece of work that deserves to be looked at on its own, without comparisons to The Drones or even The Gents, The Balladeer Hunter is an intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable record, free from production tricks, just good songs performed by talented musicians.

Review Score: 9/10

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