Brewing Up With

They Say...

Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

Billy Bragg's first full-length album was a near-perfect distillation of his many facets -- one-man band, cheerful troublemaker, passionate if foghorn-voiced vocalist, rough but emphatic guitarist, heartfelt activist, man on the street, and lovelorn romantic walking the fine line between wistfulness and reality. Released in 1984, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg for the most part continues in the spare, voice-and-guitar style of the previous year's EP, Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy, but the production (from Edward DeBono) and engineering (by Kenny Jones) add a touch more polish that focuses Bragg's songs without dulling their impact, and the occasional subtle overdubs -- an acoustic guitar on "It Says Here," a trumpet on "The Saturday Boy," harmonies on "Love Gets Dangerous" -- bring additional seasoning to the recordings while maintaining the high-contrast dynamics that were so much a part of Bragg's early approach. And the 11 songs on board represent some of Bragg's strongest and most effective writing to date, balancing political numbers (most memorably his rant against the British press on "It Says Here" and the claustrophobic terror of the wartime narrative "Island of No Return") with tales of love that never go quite right (the sweet melancholy of "A Lover Sings" and "The Saturday Boy" are deeply affecting, while the blunt memories of infidelity are captured with painful clarity on "The Myth of Trust"). While Billy Bragg's records would get more ambitious with the passage of time, they rarely got much better than Brewing Up with Billy Bragg. Yep Roc Records' 2006 reissue of Brewing Up adds a bonus CD that effectively doubles the running time and track count of the original LP, including all four songs from the 1985 Between the Wars EP, one of Bragg's most powerful political broadsides (the stirring title song is joined by a leaner, earlier recording of "It Says Here" and covers of "Which Side Are You On?" and "The World Turned Upside Down"). Also on deck are three outtakes from the Brewing Up sessions, but while "I Won't Talk About It" is a potent soul-influenced number, they're certainly not up to the level of the songs that did make the cut for the album. More interesting are three home-recorded demos from early 1986, with Johnny Marr adding guitar on covers of the Smiths' "Back to the Old House" and "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones. The bonus disc doesn't necessarily improve Brewing Up, but fans will certainly find the bonus material worth a listen, especially the stellar Between the Wars tracks.