Album Review
The Drain On The Balcony
Outsider Art
Local Underground and Old Bad Habits Label
12” Vinyl, CD, DL
Preorder for release 15 September 2025
Once described as Solihull’s best acoustic punk band, they formed in 1977 and reformed in 2009. Their music is a combination of punk, pop, folk, C86, post-punk and Indie pop say their (Greek) label. Another great, lost, ‘Outsider Art’ band – just the kind Ged Babey loves in his search for lost gems from his generation of former teenage punks, now nearing bus-pass age.
I shouldn’t start a review like this, but, you-know-me…
There are a couple of really shit, utterly pointless, self-indulgent-bollocks tracks on this album…. I Talk To The Pants and Vegetable Mantra to name and shame them.
The veg one is actually virtually verbatim from someone on a zoom conference in lockdown the band told me. I eat twenty-four kinds of vegetables… I keep them on a spreadsheet.
For. Fucks. Sake.
But despite that, and maybe even because of it, Outsider Art gets my seal of approval.
I should quickly add that there are at least three other songs which are among the best I’ve heard this year. Affecting, articulate and poetic… in fact, fucking brilliant.
On first quick listen of Outsider Art, I scribbled down this, to remind myself later: Like a cross between the Desperate Bicycles and Martha & the Muffins… Adding – which sounds like an insult, but the more you actually think about it, it’s in fact the highest praise.
I sent it to the drummer in the band, who I know as ‘Rocker’, and have met in real-life, a couple times. “Cheers, we’ll take that!” He replied.
Since ‘The Drain’ he has been a member of the Rosehips, the Flatmates and Arrest! Charlie Tipper. He is the only band member from The Drain On The Balcony to go on to ‘cult infamy’ – the rest of them settled down and became family men. He runs the Local Underground label which bring out releases by the bands he is associated with and is as all-round local music enthusiast and ‘activist’.
And while we are on the subject of the band name – I assume that it’s one of those… ‘What shall we call the band?’ conversations which ended with…”First thing we see when we look out of the window…!” So luckily, they are not called ‘Two Dogs Shagging’.
As well as the two aforementioned ‘shit’ songs, the three near-genius songs on Outsider Art are: Track 13 of the 13, Two Legs In The Desert. An adaptation of the poem Ozymandias, famously reinterpreted by Stranglers JJ Burnel on a 1979 b-side, it’s a poem I adore.
It’s a song about finally realising that it’s time to move on and retire – cos in a thousand years your achievements will be as worthless as the broken base of the statue.
Another is a song called unhelpfully ‘Riff’. It incorporates part of a nursery rhyme, which I oddly only remember from Methodist Sunday School circa 1969. If You’re Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands... It creates that perfect mix of nostalgia and 60-something wallowing that was sure to ensnare me. It actually stands as a piece of poetry if you imagine Stevie Smith reading it rather than that popular 1970’s West Country poetess who shall remain nameless.
It’s the sadness of waiting that’s getting me down
Waiting for changes that don’t come around
Watching the river slide into the sea
Leaving me lost like a stone on the beach
(full lyric at the end of review.)
Smile In My Heart – a love song worthy of Pete Shelley or Galaxie 500 with fabulous ‘Hammond‘ organ and brass and a leisurely pace. A song about a couple still in love in later-life, it includes a great relatable line ‘We haven’t ‘grown up’ like the way we are supposed to….‘ still laughing at silliness despite going through ‘dark-times’. Like I say, a real-life true-love song for older lovers.
Butterfly Girl and Take Me Home Tonight are fab: but pure C86 type pop love-songs. There is a lot of variety on Outsider Art though.
Opening track is OS Art – a nod to Swell Maps HS Art but a vocoder-heavy track which reminds me of Chumbawamba circa the brilliant Shhh! album.
The Big Ship is a bit Cool Jerk for my liking and I don’t get the reference – but does have some great spikey guitar and bongos interplay as it progresses.
Revolution 10 is text from Bob Marley recited with sympathetic reggae backing and stands out as a result.
Copcut Lane is a sweet, parochial vignette – and presumably a favourite of the band as they chose to make a video. It features the bells of St Michael’s Church, Salwarpe and has an Only Ones ‘Miles From Nowhere’ type sentiment lyrically and is probably a prime example of a whole new genre called Retirement Rock.
Catherine is a bit annoyingly ‘Beatles’ and maybe a tad too soppy… saved by being self-referential and cute: – Catherine, you’re a two-song girl. (The sleeve notes tell us Catherine Turrell, lived somewhere near Lyon around 1979 ). It must’ve been some holiday romance to still be remembered after all this time.
The DOTB are a very accomplished band on the quiet and have written some incredibly good songs: which have a heart and soul, subtlety, wit and pathos.
All of the band members sing and write the songs – but none are distinctive vocalists so the bands identity is in the songcraft and musicianship rather than the lead vocal – a recipe for ‘commercial disaster’ if ever there was one.
A quick listen to the five previous Drain On The Balcony albums and I have to conclude that this is ‘the best’ only in terms of production because they always seem to have been interesting and open-hearted songwriters who could’ve been contenders.
I kinda get the feeling that they are content with being Outsider Artists, the Cult Band They Are – Loved By The Few – Making Art for the Love-of-It: songs to make you smile and feel less-alone…
Plus a couple bloody awful songs about pants and vegetables in a willful act of self-sabotage just to test the loyalty of their fans!
Buy from Bandcamp (Digital only)
Buy from Bandcamp (Vinyl)
All words Ged Babey with press release content & lyrics in italics.
RIFF (lyric by Martin)
It’s the sadness of waiting that’s getting me down
Waiting for changes that don’t come around
Watching the river slide into the sea
Leaving me lost like a stone on the beach
It’s the coldness of standing that’s chilling my heart
Watching my fingers and toes fall apart
Like a rusted sign at the side of the road
Pointing to places where nobody goes
It’s the stillness of listening that empties my mind
Leaving my dreams and my memories behind
It’s the fear of moving pins my feet to the floor
Knowing there’s nowhere to go anymore
And here comes the marching band
If I’m happy and I know it then I’ll clap my hands
And stamp my feet and jump round
’Til somebody tells us it’s time to fall down
I read the morning paper
The headline said I was alive
Even though my body temperature
Had dropped right down to five
A man knocked at the door
He had a face just like the sun
He said I should keep Christmas free
’Cos I’m the chosen one
Please salute the marching band
They’ve played an anthem for our land
So stamp your feet and jump around
’Til somebody tells you to turn it down
(C) The Drain On The Balcony
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