Early in his career,
Billy Bragg often seemed like a "singing journalist" in the manner of his sometime role model
Phil Ochs, but there was always a strong element of the personal in
Bragg's work as well, and it grew stronger with the passage of time. But
Bragg never stopped singing about the issues of the day, and in the wake of the election of Donald Trump in America and the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, he's had plenty of food for thought.
Bridges Not Walls is a six-song EP that gives
Bragg a much-needed soapbox for songs about the chaotic state of the world in 2017. Each of these tracks explicitly deals with a topic pertaining to our current crises -- economic injustice, global warming, xenophobia, the right to protest, and the ways in in which the free market has become a blunt instrument that harms more than it helps. On "The Sleep of Reason" and a cover of
Anais Mitchell's "Why We Build the Wall" (the latter timelier than ever),
Bragg returns to the one-man-
Clash buzzsaw guitar style that was his first aural trademark, though most of the time he approaches these songs with the pub rock/contemporary folk hybrid that's become his standard.
Bridges Not Walls is not the work of the angry young man
Bragg was in 1983, but his commitment to his ideals and these songs is as strong as ever, and the warmth of "Saffiyah Smiles" and "King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood" is powerful and engaging. The final track, "Full English Brexit," is nothing short of brilliant, a thorough inventory of the poisoned thinking that led to Brexit put into the voice of one unfortunately typical bloke who fails to recognize his own racism. In a world that's turning upside down on a regular basis, the topical EP may be just the right format for
Billy Bragg's socially conscious side, and
Bridges Not Walls is smart, insightful music from a man who's made such things his business for nearly 35 years. ~ Mark Deming