Ragtime! Hokum! Western Swing!

Cued by the ‘hokum’ present both in the album title and, homophonically, in the name of the band, this reviewer detected elements of several definitions of the word: ‘aparticular type of American blues music, humorous song; a stock technique for eliciting a desired response from an audience; something apparently legitimate; nonsense.’ But humour or comedy is hard, it's said, and the band, however well-intentioned, doesn’t quite possess the timing or the virtuosity of vocal and instrumental delivery to bring it off on this recording, though their sense of fun is infectious. Based in Leeds, they avowedly aim to channel the ragtime, bluesy sound of the great American string bands of the 1920s, equipped with banjo, guitar, fiddle, trumpet, steel guitar, and some delightful percussion and drums. But leader CD Wallum's all-original material doesn’t spawn many memorable melodies or lyrics, and the latter are sometimes hard to discern. It's likely that such rousing nostalgia would be far more palpable and affecting in live performance.