I take a further turn into obscurity today, albeit again with an artist who really deserves to be much better known. In many ways the best songwriter you've never heard of.
Vigilantes of Love, whose name was taken from a New Order song, was a vehicle for singer-songwriter Bill Mallonee. He at least started out under the alternative Christian music label and the lack of commercial success might stem from him having been too secular for the Christian market and yet too Christian for the secular market.
And yet he has clearly had some mainstream affirmation, Emmylou Harris contributed vocals to one Vigilantes song, while Peter Buck out of REM co-produced an early album, and he has been named in one list of 100 best living songwriters.
He has also perhaps been too prolific, putting out around 50 albums in a career of about 35 years and while each one that I've heard has its high points, it can begin to sound a bit samey and there hasn't been much stylistic evolution. So one Vigilantes of Love or Bill Mallonee solo album can sound much like another.
Yet he has been a consistently very good songwriter and sometimes an outstanding one. Two albums from the 1990s, Killing Floor and Audible Sigh really deserve to be hailed as masterpieces. The review of the former that I've linked to describes their style as 'trying to get the biggest, most aggressive sound they can while using acoustic string instruments almost exclusively... a terrific set of Power Folk.' This seems as good a description as any of the Vigilantes sound..
This song is from a kind of outtakes album from the Audible Sigh album, 'Cross the Big Pond, recorded in 1999 in Cheltenham, apparently. This may at one level be considered a Christian song, but is also about soldiering on through adversity and looking positively to the future. Despite the title this isn't really a seasonal song, and it's one I listened to more in Lent than Advent.
Still, please listen and then explore further the Vigilantes of Love/Mallonee back catalogue at Bandcamp.
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