Last time I covered Swedish songwriter Armadillo King he was wandering around rather aimlessly in his hat, trying to make sense of life in general, and the result was a excellent single called ‘Borrowed Time’. I’d definitely recommend you listen if you missed it the 1st time.
Given his character and alter ego, I doubted whether we’d be seeing too many summer pop hits celebrating the July sunshine and barbecues on the beach but here he is with a summer release, albeit catapulted back 150 years over in the American Mid West, which at least that means he’s still allowed to wear a big jacket and that ever familiar headwear.
‘Deadwood Rye‘ is the name of the song, and there’s a video to go with it too, which brings the character he portrays to life. It’s a fairly simple premise, his alter ego “trying to get through a regular life, but somehow being roped into some parallel, precarious scenario”. And I certainly know how he feels, having once had to cross a road in Manila.
Anyway on this occasion he’s the hard drinking, gun touting bandit style character that apparently he once was in a previous life, and whilst the song isn’t quite as memorable musically as ‘Borrowed Time’, it paints a really vivid picture, and the song has a melodic swagger to it, as if…. well as if it’s actually best sung whilst half drunk.
The sepia tinged video itself is fairly straight forward, but works well as an accompaniment to the track, and in just a few songs Armadillo King has done a really effective job in building up the persona and image of the character he’s portraying. Although for some reason I always find it very unnerving when someone points a gun in my direction via a TV or IPad screen. Am I the only one who ducks?
I look forward to future tracks, he’s an interesting songwriter and always welcome on these pages.