Southern Tenant Folk Union - The Chuck Norris Project FLAC

“The velvet glove is in the sweetness of the sound, especially the pleasant wispiness of Rory Butler’s singing voice, while the iron fist is in the subject matter, as in the American school shootings described in Slaughter In San Francisco…Musically this is highly accomplished stuff, and this is a band that gets better and sharper with each outing. It’s always good to remember that folk has a razor political edge.”
Chris Nickson, Stirrings Magazine

“The tracks that the titles have produce combine to create a folk concept album that is as entertaining as it is thought provoking. This is a real treat from the Southern Tenant Folk Union.”
JRT, Rock Society Magazine

“Music of delightful invention, slipping in and out of genres with a surprising deftness…this is ambitious music in Punch Brothers vein with only flickers of STFU’s bluegrass origins.”
Joe Breen, 4 Stars, The Irish Times

“Closed minds probably shouldn’t come too near this but if you’re interested in where spokes away from the bluegrass hub might lead, then be prepared for a fine, stimulating and rewarding audio experience.”
Trevor Hyett, British Bluegrass News

“I’ll be honest, when I first heard the concept surrounding the record, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. When my copy arrived, bedecked in skulls and guns I was further worried. However, I needn’t have bothered. As soon as I played it, I was at ease – this is the same, wonderful STFU whose self-titled debut caused such a stir in 2007.”
Rob Lavender, Metro

“Southern Tenant Folk Union are a folk band for the Occupy era – passionate, political and mischievous. Album six fixates on the American right and its death cult, the Chuck of the title being a Christian Republican as well as the veteran screen action hero. Never failing to pile on the irony this is STFU’s least action-packed, most thoughtful – even sorrowful – offering so far. The septet’s banjo/fiddle/mandolin/guitar/string-bass prowess now stretches far from their folk/country roots beyond even the artful twang of John Peel faves The Mekons towards Robert Wyatt’s mournfulness.”
Mat Snow, 4 Stars, Q Magazine

“It is an ambitious and original project with a feast of interesting ideas…an impressive achievement, but it won’t be to everyone’s taste including, I suspect, Chuck Norris.”
Michael Hingston, 3 Stars, Country Music People

“A round-house kick to the gut. Overall the results are weird and ethereal, as all good 70s concept albums were. Not to everyone’s taste, but definitely imaginative.”
Nathaniel Handy, 3 Stars, Songlines

“Now pushing their art a fair bit further, they’re filtering a succession of minor chords through arrangements that, in terms of ambition, look to a hybrid of Kronos Quartet and Punch Brothers.”
Alan Morrison, Sunday Herald

“This is thrilling folk-rock at its best, with the Union unafraid to adopt funk and soul in their sound too.”
Dave Esson, 4 Stars, Scottish Daily Express

“It’s epic like the best of Pink Floyd or Arcade Fire. After years of critics complaining that music has stopped being political, this is an album that takes umbrage with much in society. A fantastic idea brilliantly executed and what a way for Scottish music to start 2015. The bar has been set. Very, very high.”
Rick Fulton, The Daily Record

“Gun control, ideological extremism, fiscal greed and unfair labour laws are picked over in an ambitious suite of songs which though deploying the band’s all-acoustic blend of guitars, double bass and strings, expands STFU’s folk origins by drawing on funk (“Delta Force”), deep soul (“Martial Law” is Isaac Hayes taking the high road) and film-score atmospherics.”
Graeme Thomson, 7/10, Uncut Magazine

“The band’s focus looks more toward modern classical. With abundant use of violin, cello and clarinet, the works of Kurt Weill frequently spring to mind, while Rory Butler’s airy, detached vocal has an operatic quality.”
Gerry Ranson, 3 Stars, R2 Magazine

“One of the things I like about the Southern Tenant Folk Union, is the way their music shows influence of traditions, whilst at the same time never feeling like those influences or traditions are allowed to dictate, making you feel that both band and releases are very much their own entity. “The Chuck Norris Project” is quite a dramatic recording, almost cinematic in places, at times that makes it a challenging album, but it’s a challenge worth rising to. That’s not to say it’s a difficult album to listen to, it’s not. Ok it is, but really only if you’ve become too attached to sanitised radio friendly fare, there is something a bit off the convention about both Southern Tenant Folk Union and “The Chuck Norris Project”, but ultimately that’s quite a reassuring thing.”
Neil King, FATEA

“With thought-provoking expansive soundscapes of songs that are at the same time atmospheric, chilling and unnerving, The Chuck Norris Project is Southern Tenant Folk Union’s most ambitious album so far. This is an album that Americans – especially politicians – would do well to pay attention to as it exposes the astonishing array of ills and injustices in the land that likes to claim to be the world’s greatest democracy.”
Roy Spencer, Folk Radio UK

“For Scottish band Southern Tenant Folk Union, the concept album has become a realised pinnacle, an apex of musical performance that delivers a mighty blow in the form of The Chuck Norris Project; an album at the peak of physical prowess and mental projection. Although the album has nothing whatsoever to do with the American actor, aside from the song titles alluding to his cinematic output, the ideas that range through the entire recording look at how America, the often thought, ideal and leaders of the free world, its political subterfuge and at times extraordinary grasp of the plausible made impossible. An album of great strength, of divine lyrical style and one that assists the afflicted and suppressed.”
Ian D. Hall, 9/10, Liverpool Sound And Vision

“The record is an all-acoustic affair, with banjos fiddles and acoustic guitar as its solid core, but it is impressive, occasionally breath-taking in its breadth and scope. The beautifully arranged orchestral string quartet sounds add layers of slightly cinematic quality, while elsewhere they just bath the already rich melodies in blankets of ethereal and unexpected sonic heaven. Overall the sound has been expanded to include clarinets choirs and modernist classical ideas to great effect. Despite its original concept, which may initially appear baffling, then themes of the album, and the wonderfully expressed sentiments of the personal and the political really resonate and demand deeper listening and thought; all over the most beautifully orchestrated, organic music. ‘The Chuck Norris Project’ doesn't so much seethe with political rage, or spout political ire, but gently and soberly asks questions, discusses feelings and maybe even suggests possibilities.”
Ian Fildes, 8/10, Americana UK

“Ah, Chuck Norris. An all-American icon, at least in the bits of the US keen on guns and God and not so fond of socialists or the 21st century. He’s also an unlikely inspiration for STFU, the erstwhile bluegrassers now peddling an ambitious and off-the-wall brand of widescreen avant-folk.
This concept album takes a dozen of the meat-headed martial artist’s film titles as the starting point to talk about what’s really wrong with politics and the US. Not Barack Obama and gay rights — as Norris would have it — but rampant gun ownership, exploited workers, fear, paranoia and the increasing difficulty of even imagining a better world, never mind building one. Backed by evocative arrangements, with a strong flavour of Shaft-style ’70s funk, it’s another gem from Edinburgh’s most unpredictable band.”
James Miller, 5 Stars, The Morning Star

“This CD from the Edinburgh-based folk/bluegrass outfit both is and is not a concept album about Chuck Norris. Its songs take their titles from the actor’s films, and the musical bedrock frequently hints at Folxploitation. But those titles are mere jumping off points for political meditations on school shootings (“Slaughter In San Francisco”) or the casualised work of the new millennium (“Delta Force” — Brave New World not Special Forces).”
David Honigmann, 3 Stars, Financial Times

“It’s a testament to how far the Southern Tenant Folk Union push the boundaries of folk that their sixth album features tracks all named after Chuck Norris films and they can make a banjo sound like a John Carpenter soundtrack. In fact musically the album may feature mandolin, fiddle and aforementioned banjo but the Chuck Norris Project seems a long way from folk, with jazz, soul and funk among the genres that weave in and out of these songs. The added use of clarinet and orchestrated violin, along with cello, give it an epic soundtrack quality as well. Given McGarvey’s passion for cinema music (he is also a member of the Incredibly Strange Film Band) surely it’s about time STFU were commissioned to produce a movie soundtrack? Although for political reasons I suspect Norris himself may pass on using them for any of his future releases.”
Joe Lepper, 9/10, Neon Filler