Ragan appears without ceremony, a barely audible “whoah” his only call to arms. Somehow, between that iconic roar and Todd Beene’s pedal steel, a sound that can consume the whole enraptured venue is conjured from thin air. Before crisp and forthright ‘Nothing Left To Lose’ concludes, we’re barely aware that there’s only the two of them onstage, silhouetted against a bare blue wall. We don’t need anything else. ‘Get What You Give’ pits a punchier Ragan against the world. He’s sprinting through the old songs, offering only devastating pauses to let uncertainty hang in the air, passionately flinging his arm back as he beats his chest. He seems taller, more put together, than his last time in London. “Cheers, friends,” he mutters, adjusting his harmonica and you get the sense he means it. “It’s very easy to become more and more disconnected from doing something that puts the hair up on the back of our necks, that’s a little risky,” Ragan advises before breaking into ‘Bedroll Lullaby’, its devastating harmonica wrapped in acoustic warmth. The song bursts with movement, waving an imagined scent of fresh mown grass above our heads.

As opposed to the breakneck speed which he powers through his back catalogue, the songs from ‘Love and Lore’ are given space to breathe and to be fully explored. ‘Winter’ is more understated life as he lets his guitar do the work: we can almost feel the clouds break, sun shine through and the beginning of spring. Already a fan favourite, ‘Echo The Halls’ shines like a trophy excavated from the earth. It’s the reinvention of two Hot Water Music classics, already earning their place among Ragan’s solo standards, which bring a gasp to our lips. ‘State of Grace’ has become so much more now and simultaneously so much less in its pared back form, it’s punk orthodoxy replaced with undiluted humanity as Ragan alternates between roars and whispers. “It may not come from a pretty place, more often or not it comes from a very dark place,” Ragan bluntly shares on his songwriting process. Finally, on ‘Drag My Body’, we feel the full weight of his scream as it drives a bobbing, sinking melody. He smiles warmly at our chorus, his last line a hard won solace found after our collective pain. 

Only Chuck Ragan could start a song with “oh Lord I must say” without it seeming cheesy. ‘Right As Rain’ is luxurious in its languid golden steel, before ‘Hearts of Stone’ urges us onwards, expelling our regrets and doubts. Maybe it’s not that he’s louder, even though he seems turned up to eleven: it’s just the roar retains its power to shock. ‘Flame and the Flood’ soothes like a balm, with it’s constantly ebbing message of self reliance and brotherhood. There’s a truly essential quality about his performance, no worse of not performing without his full band, and Ragan’s a performer that puts his full self into every single note he produces. As his harmonies with Beene fuel ‘Meet You In The Middle’, slowed to a stomper at points, he finally stuns us into silence with protracted seconds of his ferocious voice.

We talk about music only needing “three chords and the truth”, and that could well be Chuck Ragan’s motto. He constructs a sound that envelopes you from little except his bellowing vocals, a pedal steel, and a lifetime of lessons hard learned, and tonight brings us the kind of set that can bring you to tears and build you up to new heights of courage within minutes. It might only be one night for Ragan in his constant life on the road, but it’s one that’ll stick around in our memories for far longer. 

KATE ALLVEY

‘Echo The Halls’ arrived last month like the first snowdrop of spring, anticipating the warmth of a new album. It feels like an apology for his absence: “I fell in love with the silence,” he roars, his voice as leonine as ever, in a softer, more romantic track. It’s not a song that sums up what ‘Love and Lore’ is about though. There’s a lot more of his Hot Water Music side present, reminding us that our beloved musical grizzly bear is also one heck of a punk vocalist when he chooses to be. ‘Wild In Our Ways’ is a choppy ode to the joy of remaining steadfast to the punk dream. “We’re not meant to bow out,” he shouts, and this could be a slowed down, adapted track from the band in which he made his name judging by the rapid guitar cuts. Just when we’re enjoying a more back-to-basics side to Ragan, we’re hit with ‘One More Shot’ of pure backwoods Country. Ragan’s always been comfortable including violinists in his band and completed his last tour with just an acoustic guitar and an eager pedal steel player, so letting his inner cowboy come out to play is par for the course rather than a shock. Paige Overton’s vocals on their duet add a touch of sweetness to his gruff hollering and while it’s easy to scoff at his country side, let’s not pretend that we won’t all be screaming the words this song from our chests when he tours next year.

Ragan’s still stuck between two worlds; his home life as a settled husband and father, and his desire to roam the world as a desperate corner busker. Knowing this, a lot of ‘Love and Lore’ feels like his personal meditations on this topic. The opening track, ‘All In’, has to be the song that emerges as the classic from his album. It reads like Ragan’s manifesto as he walks the line between roles and genres, equal parts the sound of stomping boots and twanging, dreamy rebuttal. “Let me know when you’ve found your sound,” says an anonymous character, perhaps some kind of woodland muse that inspires the finest of roughly hewn solo artists. It could even be Ragan himself, asking us if we’re any less rootless in our musical inspiration than he is. Either way, the pedal steel adds a gorgeous unreality. Then we’ve got ‘Winter’; a tight nervous song that erupts in a full Ragan wail as he runs “down to the river to wash out my eyes” and regain himself. ‘Aching Hour’ continues in a similar, steel-heavy vein, seeing Ragan grappling with his past, future and passions. Ragan’s more anguished tracks are always his best, and while obviously we want him to live his best life, it’s so pleasing to hear that all-encompassing roar burn out through the headphones in the way only his most raw songs can provoke. 

No one wants to be the person who nails their colours to the mast and says “this is an artist’s best album”. It’s a risky statement, and implies that they couldn’t make an even better record in a year’s time, but it’s so tempting to refer to ’Love And Lore’ in similar terms. It has a far different and more refined character than, say, 2011’s ‘Covering Ground’ and it’s string of rousing fan favourites, but there’s more than enough resolution in this record for fans of Ragan’s previous albums. A sense of growth and wisdom permeates each song, and when viewed as part of Ragan’s journey, we get a real sense of trajectory. This album proves what an interesting songwriter he is, determined to tread his own path even when it strays from conventional genre boundaries. The one thing that can be said for sure is that Ragan’s fire glows as brightly as ever, and ‘Love and Lore’ is the album hat will keep you warm in the long winter before his next tour. 

KATE ALLVEY

Only one member of Ragan’s usual touring band, the Camaraderie, has made it to the UK, but by reducing his backup to Todd Beene on lap steel, we gain infinitely in terms of atmosphere and world building. There’s no distraction from the purity of Ragan’s unpretentious intention and his mighty, full voice. ‘Nothing Left To Lose’ builds slowly like an aching sunrise across lonesome plains of guitar which echo to the horizon, and ‘Bedroll Lullaby’ blooms full and lush like a tapestry of longing. Ragan checks in on us between songs to see if we haven’t been swept away by the elemental power of his growl. He speaks quickly and quietly in a thick accent, and grins broadly when he spots someone having a good time in one of his rare pauses between songs. Somehow, the vocalist is exactly how you’d expect from his music, and a complete contrast at the same time. His humble demeanour only makes the vastness of ‘Vagabond’ more shocking; it’s louder and more forceful than the studio recordings suggest, invested with a power like a prophecy from an ancient epic, and finishes with a poignant twist of regret.

“Thank you, friend,” Ragan nods graciously as if he knows each of us personally after ‘The Flame and The Flood’, a song that casts campfire shadows into the night like the dying embers glowing red. He certainly feels like we’re all close to him, taking a moment to ‘pay respects to the entire Hot Water Music family’ of which the three hundred of us are a part. This year is his band’s thirtieth anniversary, and to celebrate a full Hot Water Music UK tour coming up next month (and rumours of a new album), Ragan offers us re-fashioned versions of the punk side of his back catalogue.

‘State Of Grace’ is rich in reassurance, a heartfelt stripping away of preconception and memory sewn together lovingly with tumbling steel notes. The power of the song sends Ragan off-balance: he flings his entire body in an imaginary pit, then centres himself before each verse as if he remembers his status as punk statesman. ‘Habitual’ cracks with the sounds of country glaciers forming as Ragan throws his wail to the walls. “I’m ok,” he chants to himself on the chorus in a desperate mantra. His overwhelming fervour for his solo music returns on ‘Meet You In The Middle’ and he jolts like his lyrics are electrocuting him, weaving harmonies to create a majestic homecoming.

“Let’s get him up here… this guy is going places,” Ragan smiles before Frank Turner joins him onstage. First support Jess Guise (also known as Turner’s better half) had to cancel her appearance at the eleventh hour, giving Turner the opportunity to step in for her and test out his new material from his upcoming album, ‘Undefeated’. Turner can’t stop cracking up in laughter when he’s brought onstage; he doesn’t know the words to the song Ragan’s playing. “You never heard of Karaoke?” Ragan asks him, trying not to chuckle himself.

It seems fitting for a show that glorifies friendship in the theme of nearly every song to include an encore which makes two longstanding comrades-in-arms giggle for five minutes. Once composure is restored, the two throatiest vocalists on the ‘punk survivors’ scene rip into ‘The Boat’, and any darkness lingering at the periphery of our minds is banished by the blazing strength of the sound they rip from their chests. We’ll all make it through the night with a song like this one as the lighthouse to bring us home. As the final chord fades and dies, the much taller Turner hugs Ragan tightly to his chest and kisses the top of his head. We would all love to be able to do the same.

It’s been a decade since the Revival Tour brought the frontmen together, and Ragan’s been in all of our lives for much longer through his many musical incarnations. We’re stronger together, and capable of anything when our bellies and hearts are full of the fire Chuck Ragan lights with his show. 

KATE ALLVEY

“Much of the material for TFITF was written while camping on the banks of the river or on solo missions drifting and rowing one of our local rivers,” says Ragan, with the soundtrack due on the 4th February.

“I’m completely honored to share some original music to the world through TFITF,” Ragan continues. “Viewing some images of early layouts and catching the drift, so to speak, of what the game would be all about, the direction of music that I wanted to take and work on with The Camaraderie became very clear.”

The survival game sees players scrounging, crafting and evading, all whilst staying ahead of the weather.

“I spent quite a lot of time running out to the river, setting up camp to build a fire, write, fish, write more and repeat. I also wanted to invite and include friends to be a part of it, playing, writing or singing anything they wanted to add. Cory Brannan, Jon Snodgrass, Adam Faucett and of course The Camaraderie are some of the very important collaborations on this recording that made the soundtrack it what it is.”

Kicking off on December 2, Chuck will bring along The Camaraderie members Joe Ginsberg (bass), Todd Beene (pedal steel) and Jon Gaunt (fiddle) for his 2014 Winter Haul.

Dates are as follows:

DECEMBER
02 WASHINGTON, DC Gypsy Sally’s
03 ANNAPOLIS, MD Rams Head On Stage
04 PHILADELPHIA, PA World Café Live
06 BROOKLYN, NY Rough Trade
07 TEANECK, NJ Mexicali Live
09 NORTHAMPTON, MA Iron Hose Music Hall
10 PORTLAND, ME Port City Music Hall
11 CAMBRIDGE, MA The Sinclair
12 PLYMOUTH, NH Flying Monkey Performance Center
13 ALBANY, NY The Hollow

Tickets are on sale now via chuckraganmusic.com!

The dulcet tones of Chuck Ragan return to the UK for a handful more shows next week. Dates are:

JUNE
24 BRIGHTON The Haunt
25 MANCHESTER Gorilla
26 LEEDS Brudenell

Tickets from http://chuckraganmusic.com/tour-dates/

In addition, he has a relatively new video up for ‘Something May Catch Fire’, the second single from his fifth solo album, ‘Till Midnight’.

Punk influenced singer-songwriter Northcote has released the second live performance taken from The Lowville Sessions. ‘Counting Down The Days’ arrives ahead of Matt Goud’s European tour with Hot Water Music frontman, Chuck Ragan.

The ‘Overseas Till Midnight’ Tour covers the UK and Germany, with a few stops in Italy and Austria along the way.

‘Counting Down The Days’ arrives a couple of months after the first performance from The Lowville Sessions, ‘Drive Me Home’.

MAY
27 NOTTINGHAM Rock City Basement
28 BRISTOL Thekla
29 LONDON Garage

JUNE
24 BRIGHTON The Haunt
25 MANCHESTER Gorilla
26 LEEDS Brudenell Social Club

Chuck Ragan and The Camaraderie are calling on artists to create original pieces inspired by Chuck’s new album Till Midnight… Each chosen artist will be assigned a song off of the album to translate the story behind the song into artwork. Selected artists will be featured on Chuck Ragan’s official website and social networks.

If that wasn’t enough they will also have limited edition merchandise that was inspired by their art featured and sold on Ragan’s website.

Selected artists will receive a flat fee of $200 for their composition. Artist portfolio/website links along with a $10 entry fee payable to PayPal must be submitted to camaraderieartcampaign@gmail.com no later than April 30, 2014 to be considered.

With his fifth full-length, ‘Till Midnight’, due for release on the 24th March, Chuck Ragan will be hitting the UK for a tour in May.

The former member of Hot Water Music will be bringing a full band to the UK, starting and finishing his European tour on British soil.

Chuck Ragan recently released the official video for ‘Something May Catch Fire’, taken from the forthcoming record.

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Tickets are available now via the following links:

MAY
27 NOTTINGHAM Rock City
28 BRISTOL Thekla
29 LONDON Garage

JUNE
24 BRIGHTON The Haunt
25 MANCHESTER Gorilla
26 LEEDS Brudenell