ALBUM REVIEW: LEWIS ‘BURNER’ PUGH – Bullets For Bread (2024)

Lewis ‘Burner’ Pugh is a solo artist from Leeds influenced by everything from bluegrass and country through to skiffle and punk. Bullets For Bread’, his third solo album, is a politically driven album of original folk and country influenced songs out on Shed Load Records.

2024 has been a rather slow year so far in the Celtic-Punk world but that’s not why we have gone off on a tangent to review the new album from Lewis ‘Burner’ Pugh. While it would be a stretch to describe it as Celtic-Punk (or even Folk-Punk) it does that storytelling style we love so much and coupled with it all being based on true stories of ordinary working class folk it’s simply an album that fits so perfectly here we couldn’t resist sharing our thoughts on it.

This is the third solo album from Lewis after Dog Songs from 2018 and Wheels Turn Above Our Heads from 2020 along with a bunch of single track and EP’s released along the way. Several tracks from the album have been released in the run up to the albums release so a good share of Bullets For Bread is a bit familiar already.

(The videos used to illustrate the review are not the versions used on the album so head down and stream from Bandcamp to get the full version)

Bullets For Bread is ten tracks and thirty + minutes of almost entirely original compositions where Lewis has written all the songs and plays all the instruments bar some help from friends Steven Hicken Jr. from Lewis band mate in the The Burner Band on pedal steel and Niles Krieger from Geordie bluegrass band The Often Herd on fiddle. The album begins with ‘Holbeck Moor’ which lays down exactly where Lewis comes from straight away with the story from 1936 of his home town Leeds rising up to take on the British Union of Fascists and sending them packing. The song is fast and tuneful and catchy with the three musicians sounding somehow like many many more with excellent production. Next up is ‘I Am A Union Man’ and its sound evokes an era of when the unions were strong and powerful and led by and for the working class. Those days are long ago sadly with the unions these days following the Labour Party in courting the middle classes and completely out of touch with the working classes but when Aunt Molly Jackson wrote this song sometime around 1931 a whole world was possible. Lewis has updated the lyrics but not sure which parts. ‘Violet Gibson (Remember My Name)’ is a short tale of an Irish-born woman who attempted to assassinate Benito Mussolini in 1926. ‘Featherstone Massacre’ is one of the highlights of the album with lyrics that leap off the page to you. You can feel the anger of generations through his words about the Police murder of two miners in the West Yorkshire mining town of Featherstone in 1893. We featured this release in much more detail when it was released as a single in September last year.

These are songs from history that the school books don’t tell us about and Lewis is in treasured company reminding us. ‘The Ballad Of Emily Swann’ tells of a woman arrested and hanged in Leeds for the murder of her abusive husband with her lover John Gallagher, in 1903. The chorus is based on the last words they exchanged just before their deaths.

“Good morning John, Good morning love,
Are we going below? Or to heaven above?
God bless you Johnny, and rest your soul,
Last time I’ll see you is on this gallows pole.”

The remaining songs here are ones that haven’t been released previously starting with ‘The Biggest Dig’ keeps the momentum flowing with fast and catchy tune that brings to mind in both lyrics and tune The men They Couldn’t Hang. Great uplifting fiddle, the class of steel peddle and Lewis strong vocals combining to great effect. ‘Nae Pasaran’ tells of the overthrow of the government in Chile in the 1970’s by a US led fascist coup while Niles leads ‘Swinging On A Rope’ which also features some pretty damn good harmonica. Can’t really say we’ve had a ballad type song yet as despite the often tragic words the songs have an uplifting ability to them. This Lewis has in common with much Celtic music. ‘Invisible Regiment’ is as close as we get to a ballad and a gorgeous one at that despite its heartbreaking lyrics about an old soldier haunted by his days at war. The curtain comes down with ‘Rich Preacher’ and your standard dig at men in suits with bibles and big houses and cars.

Overall a great album and a bit of a admission here in that as editor of these here pages I have no need to buy any music seeing how I am literally bombarded with new music every day but I actually put my hand in my pocket for Bullets For Bread and bought the vinyl. Quite a thing for a Yorkshireman to admit! The vinyl comes with a beautiful lyric booklet illustrated by Noah Brown which was half the reason I wanted it so bad! The album was recorded at Pugh Productions and expertly mixed by Grant Henderson at Loom Studios in West Yorkshire. We desperately need people like Lewis. As the years go by less and less than Folk musicians tell it how it is and without that the gallant history of our class will vanish.

(Download / Stream Bullets For Bread from Bandcamp below)

Contact Lewis ‘Burner’ Pugh  https://linktr.ee/theburnerband