At the Bridge

This album bears the subtitle “Folk Variations and New Songs,” and that’s what you get. The Singing Loins were an acoustic folk duo composed of multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, mandolin, etc.) Chris Allen and percussionist/harmonica player Chris Broderick; they made a string of albums on their own and collaborated with Childish twice — this is the first of those, from 1993. In addition to a clutch of new material, you get versions of Childish classics like “You Make Me Die,” “Pocahontas Was Her Name,” “I Don’t Like The Man I Am,” and “Brimful of Hate,” all performed in an English folk/pub singalong style, with foot-stomping percussion, tambourine, acoustic guitar and/or banjo, and caterwauling, ragged all-male vocal harmony. “The Bitter Cup” and “Every Bit Of Me” paint a dark and harrowing portrait of Childish’s early life, while “Somebody Else” is a nihilistic eruption (“Somebody else is having all the fun…somebody else is making all the money…somebody else is always right”) in a laugh-so-you-don’t-scream spirit.