The one-man band Ben Prestage has done it again with the album One Crow Murder! Or rather, he has taken it one step further than on Real Music, which I wrote about some time ago. This sounds even more instrumented and fuller than before. I’m not 100% sure, but I think Ben has managed the feat of actually playing everything on this album. There might be a small part here or there with the harmonica or something similar, but if so, it’s negligible…
The album title might need a little explanation, at least I didn’t have a full grasp of what it meant when I first listened to it. There is an explanation quoted inside the cover, or maybe it’s the lyric sheet. I’m not going to quote it verbatim, but it has to do with the fact that this is what you actually call a group of crows. Nothing strange about that, really; we do the same thing in Swedish. A swarm of bees, for example. No one has ever heard of a flock of wasps, either.
The music on One Crow Murder is very close to what we got on Real Music. I have no other experience with Ben Prestage than that album, although I wish I did. Perhaps I’ll fill in the gaps with some of his earlier albums eventually, but not right now. Here, he is credited as the songwriter, if not for everything, then at least for a significant portion of the material.
This time, I was more familiar with what kind of music I was getting for my hard-earned money, which meant that I didn’t find myself nearly as disappointed. That, in turn, meant that it was much quicker to appreciate the album’s qualities, and as I stated at the beginning, it is performed in a way that makes it almost impossible to comprehend that this is a one-man band. There is an incredible sense of presence and emotion in both the music and the performance that really grabs you, and I don’t know if I can single out any particular song or part of the album as the best. It’s simply great from beginning to end, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what Ben Prestage comes up with next!
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