The lineage is plain and proudly worn. Marc Bolan’s ghost hovers over the whole enterprise, that elfin swagger and the conviction that a three-minute pop song can carry a lifetime’s feeling if the hook is sharp enough. Ricky, on lead guitar and pen, borrows the T.Rex template without ever stooping to pastiche. Where lesser tribute acts photocopy the glitter, he keeps the generosity of spirit, the idea that rock music might be a warm room rather than a smirk.<\/p>
That warmth is the single’s greatest asset. “Molly” is catchy in the old-fashioned sense: it lodges itself somewhere behind the sternum and stays put. Billy Henagan’s vocal carries the sentiment without wallowing, which is harder than it sounds. Sentimental songs about the dead usually die of their own syrup. Here the voice stays upright, dignified and a little rumpled, like a mourner at the back of the church who loved her more than he can say aloud.<\/p>
Behind him, the band plays with the unfussy authority of people who know precisely how much is enough. Gary Sanford’s drumming keeps a steady, humane pulse, never showing off and never drifting. Nick Andrew, who plays bass and produced the record, deserves particular credit. His production is polished without being antiseptic, and in an age of over-tuned, over-quantised everything, that is a quiet act of rebellion. The sound has air in it. You can hear people playing together, which is the oldest trick in the book and still the best one. Rich Spoons’s contribution on the production side keeps the edges clean while the heart stays untidy, exactly as it should.<\/p>
Behind the record’s amiable surface sits a story that gives it its weight. Ricky wrote “Molly” for a woman who stepped into the gap when his parents died, and the song never feels like an exercise or a commission. It feels like a debt being paid in the only currency a guitarist truly owns. The band have also directed all proceeds to Help Musicians and Scope, which turns a private farewell into something quietly useful. That kind of decency is unfashionable, and all the more welcome for it.<\/span><\/p> Credit too to Alice Randall, promoter and co-writer on the band’s creative side, whom Ricky thanks with an affection that rings true. The collective feel of the project, a gang rather than a vehicle for one ego, is audible in the grooves. The name “Rebel Rabble” promises noise and mischief, but what the record delivers is fellowship.<\/span><\/p> Is it a masterpiece? That is the wrong question. Masterpieces are cold things kept behind glass, and “Molly” is a living-room record, made to be sung along to badly and played again at the end of a long day. It asks little and gives a great deal: a tune you can whistle, a story you can believe, and the rare pleasure of hearing musicians who seem glad to be in the same room.<\/span><\/p> In a business that mistakes volume for conviction, Ricky’s Rebel Rabble have made something small, sincere and lasting. Bolan would have grinned. Molly, one suspects, would have turned it up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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