If you didn’t know that Bulletproof Poets’ lyrics were actually composed as poems by the Polish poet Monika Kostera (and the music and arrangements by the band’s guitarist Tommy Jensen) you would soon guess at least that there is something different about them.
Identifying as ‘folk-rock’ but with perhaps a little bit of prog in there too, the most appropriate comparison I can make is with the Scottish-English band Trembling Bells as a source of lively erudite songs that twist and turn through assorted key, tempo and time changes often leaving you a little bewildered but appreciative of having listened to something that is deeply meaningful even if you don’t know exactly what it is.
The titles alone on this 12-track album, which is named after the “magical spot in the deep forests of Hälsingland, Sweden, where we since a year or so back regularly retreat for playful, focused, music-soaked weekends to record our music (and enjoy each other’s company)” keep you entertained trying to figure out to what they refer and it often isn’t simple to figure it out even when you listen carefully to the lyrics.
They include this sample one, ‘The song of the evil twin’, also ‘Snake Pass’ (which happens to be the name of a dangerous road between Manchester and Sheffield and thus caught my eye), ‘Mourning is the most radical thing we can do these days’ (agreed), ‘Revolution’ and ‘Definition of a poet’ (a ballad that contains the wonderful line ‘Poetry is not rocket science’).
‘Revolution’ is the one that registered most with me because you sometimes get the impression with Bulletproof Poets that their songs, and ergo Ms Kostera’s poems, collectively are a manifesto for a revolution but you can’t figure out to whom or what it is directed.
They are all sublimely acoustic – guitar, piano, double bass, organ, drums – there isn’t a synthesiser in earshot that I heard – and they usually find a strong melody, but that melody plays second fiddle to depth and meaning. Not quite rocket science perhaps, but challenging for sure.
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