Malchicks
To kill a mockingbird is the first CD release by British teenage blues band The Malchicks. The controversial cover art and black-roots, blues repertoire gives you a sense that this young band belie their years and their heritage by facing this troubled music and hallowed genre full on. At 16 years of age they are already battle-scarred veterans, with deeply held beliefs and it’s clear from this record exactly what those beliefs are.
Yet trouble has dogged their short career and their young lives have already proved to be dark, damaged and difficult. This far in, the blues have followed them like a hound dog follows its master.
A glittering start provided them with the potential to have this CD released before they had even reached their 14th birthdays, but that was not to be. After the high of headlining (at 13 years of age!) the UK launch of the Martin Scorcese Blues Films at London’s famous 100 Club, before the entire UK media and music legends like Jeff Beck and Van Morrison… it all fell apart.
They lost their line up, they lost their momentum, they lost their record label, and eventually, they lost their record label boss. It seemed that one disaster and catastrophe after another would serve to remove any chance for the Malchicks first CD to ever see the light of day.
But these kids are made of very, very stern stuff and if they never had “no luck but bad luck” they soon became accustomed to that and took up the challenge to put the band, the music and their own future back on track.
And now it’s finally ready…
Throughout “To Kill A Mockingbird”, Scarlett Wrench’s strange, haunting and dusky voice is a perfect foil for the mercury quicksilver of George Perez’s powerful, melodic, Spanish-influenced, blues guitar.
Together they breathe new life into old masters. And the historic recording techniques, which have seen this record sound closer to something recorded in the 30s and 40s than at the edge of the new millennium, provide a depth, authenticity and relevance to this recording, that is often missing from the formatted, clinical blues & R&B we hear so much, today.
This CD is a revelation, and this young band is a throwback to the days of truth…
“To Kill a Mockingbird” looks back down the years, through teenage eyes, to provide The Malchicks with a say in the future…
