The Burning Hell - A folk tragicomedy

If one wanted to label the eclectic Mathias Kom - creator,frontmanand sometimes also sole member of the Burning Hell - with just a couple of terse words, they could only correspond to the two unbridled passions that have guided his steps in art and in life. The "ukulele", first of all, which Kom bought for a handful of dollars in a small shop, soon becoming a slave to it, not least because, as he has always pointed out, it's the only instrument that "makes you smile when you play it". A first mental association with the warm notes released by this miniature guitar might bring to mind a sunset party on a white Hawaiian beach, complete with Hula dancers adorned with flower crowns. Nothing could be further from the truth in this case. His musical creation is in fact a Canadian folk band of rare eccentricity, born in Peterborough, Ontario, but later migrated to the harsher island of Newfoundland, to that St. John's known above all for the radio wave transmission experiment carried out by our own Guglielmo Marconi more than a century ago. Curious and valuable, this reference to the past conveniently sets up the assist for the second key word, which is "history". History with a capital H, the kind Mathias studied and taught for a couple of years at the local Trent University, the kind he has always loved viscerally, which has honed his fine skills as a critic and analyst but also his knack for channeling all the negativity he absorbs into songs with a celebratory swagger, exorcising it. But the word "history" also speaks of imaginative inventions, of a mastery of storytelling, and it is with this fundamental piece that our portrait is completed. The agoraphobic Mathias Kom, a skeptic out of necessity but also a man of faith, that "introverted, shy and socially awkward guy, who sometimes gets drunk and becomes talkative", is in fact, above all, a superb juggler of words lent to music, a songwriter perfectly suited to telling good stories, manipulating language "in a playful or otherwise interesting way".

My name is Mathias

In the name, lifted from a pamphlet on the Bible and adopted as a mock-ironic header, one can grasp the emphatic statement of intent behind a project born almost by chance, when Mathias grew tired of his quirky, sterile solo experiments (which had produced four self-released collections now, in practice, impossible to find) and set out to give his musical outpourings a sturdier, more collaborative shape. The starting idea was to poke fun at the perversion and fanaticism typical of evangelical Christianity, that obsessive theatricality coercively built on fear, with torment and redemption chosen as its evergreen war horses. What took shape, informally and in a thoroughly friendly spirit, was an unusual folk group playing "cheerful songs with lyrics about death" – Kom's real fixation in the early days, especially given the smiling despair running through the lyrics. The decisive step came in 2006, when the small label Weewerk released the Burning Hell's debut album, Tick Tock. The original line-up of accompanists included Jill Staveley – at whose house the album was recorded – Mike Duguay, Charlie Glasspool, Rob McGuinness, J.P. Contois, Ian Osborn and Johnny Chartrand, though only the first two would also take part in later work (up to and including Baby).

The production is still fairly modest, but there are already several worthwhile ideas on offer, starting with the fired-up opening number destined to quickly become one of the cult tracks in the Canadian outfit's catalogue, honoured over the years with more than one sequel. "I Love The Things That People Make" is indeed an emblematic title, since it eloquently establishes a stylistic template – that expressionist folk-rock register (with a faint Balkan aftertaste), thoroughly over the top yet not without a certain class, on which the eccentric crew would build its (albeit limited) fortunes. On this first release of real substance, Mathias has fun playing with the classics, and the references can only be top-shelf. "Dance Dance Dance" echoes the electric, rough-hewn Bill Callahan of "Woke On A Whaleheart", while "Working On You" nods to his more traditionalist side (escorted by strings with taste rather than showiness), and both tracks wear his identical, glorious baritone with real personality, as if they were tasty outtakes from his recent albums with or without the moniker Smog. The result is strongly characterised yet smooth-flowing, derivative but with the right attitude, and helps ensure that this first recorded step does not leave listeners indifferent.

Another of the tracks later revived is the bittersweet ballad "Municipal Monarchs", evidently inspired by a Nick Cave impersonated in his fatalist pose with almost devotional care. Another highlight of the repertoire, "It Happens In Florida" will be reworked in years to come in countless forms (it will even be honoured with an EP of variations on the theme, in the style of Yo La Tengo's "Nuclear War"). Within the scope of Tick Tock, it remains a prime example of how, at the launch of his creation, Kom was less a freewheeling showman and more a careful forger of intriguing expressive hypotheses (here still billed as Re Inkiostro), with a pleasing epic modulation and a sturdy pocket mythology bent to his whims as screenwriter and fabulist. There's also a wretched (and sublime) piano dissertation worthy of the most bewildered Howe Gelb. It's hard to say once and for all how much Mathias is putting us on - and playing games of mimicry with undeniable mastery - and how much, instead, he genuinely is what he seems. Either way, the result is credible and thoroughly enjoyable.

The songs stick in your memory. They're simple but already very well written and dressed up with rich arrangements, without anything ever feeling superfluous. Among the more curious moments is the slurred (and loose-limbed) duet "All The Stars And Parking Lots", in which the young songwriter's poetry of the marginal manages to come through contagiously, even in a lazy, languid delivery.

The overloaded rock of Burning Hell is tender and prickly at once, a lumbering steamroller assembled by hand, but also a formidable collection of ramshackle singalongs like "Bretton Woods" or "Shangri-La". Even the less cynical listeners' defences drop after a couple of spins on the player, and the introduction to Kom's colourful universe works relentlessly - the affection kicks in instantly, on instinct.

There are plenty of stylistic affinities - choral arrangements and a similar approach to songwriting - with another Canadian ensemble led by a strong artistic personality and packed with musicians and sounds of every kind: Mark Hamilton's Woodpigeon. As with "Songbook", the first chapter of the Burning Hell adventure also reveals an uncommon, irrepressible talent that smacks of destiny.

The vignette-like sketching that will take over in his later productions only surfaces occasionally here, in the delightful brass-band miniature "Little Seagull", for instance, or in the equally paradigmatic "Last Will And Testament" (paradigmatic also for its obsession with passing away), where the fetish instrument and swelling horns make their first appearance - sonic cameos that will soon claim the lion's share of the spotlight. The "dark-cabaret" label that would later be pinned on the Peterborough outfit still doesn't seem to quite fit, although a few tracks do hint at the singer's fascination with shadows, starting with the aforementioned "Shangri-La".

The ukulele, too, is still just a modest supporting player. It does, however, become the absolute star of the show in the closing moments of "99 Months", a delicate lullaby that works as a promise for the near future and confirms the storyteller's exquisitely eclectic calibre, enchanted rather than resigned in the face of the merciless passing of the hands of the clock (and their ticking).

Speaking of time running out, barely two years pass before it's already time for the Burning Hell's sophomore record. The line-up sees a few changes behind the scenes, and among the new collaborators' names, current bassist Nick Ferrio stands out (today's other members, Ariel Sharratt, Darren "Boobie" Browne and Jake Nicoll, wouldn't join until 2011). Hard to believe given such a strong debut, but Happy Birthday stands as both confirmation and a step forward, the sublime result of combining the sharp lyrics born from Kom's mind with the band's varied sonic palette, which tends to swing between two extremes: on one hand, a languid songwriting style, at times luminous and dreamy (the recycled "Municipal Monarchs"), more often clouded over or tinged with sadness ("Happy Birthday To The End Of The World", "Remote Control"); on the other, a sweeping noir folk-rock ("Grave Situation Pt. 1"), which frequently takes on cabaret shades ("Grave Situation Pt. 2", "The Second Cigarette") before playing with a country sound dusted with bluegrass ("General Electric vs The Imperial Moth"). A trait that stands out even more clearly than on the debut (a pragmatic record, all things considered) is the lively alternation between "serious" and "facetious", evident right from the arrangements, where the heart-wrenching heaviness of the cello ("Dinosaurs", "Happy Birthday To The End Of The World") and the composed accordion ("Everything You Believe Is A Lie") are echoed by the colourful swagger of the trumpet ("Grave Situation Pt. 2") and the winking charm of the banjo ("General Electric Vs The Imperial Moth"). Once again, within the collective sound, Kom's ukulele almost seems to get lost, resurfacing only when the instrumental tide recedes ("Dinosaurs", "Goodbye Ukulele").

Mathias's voice has the oceanic depth of Micah P. Hinson, the theatrical plasticity of Stan Ridgway and the clouds of dark melancholy of Ilya Monosov. On several occasions the storyteller is joined by a female voice: whether it's the limpid tones of Mary Jane McCallum ("I Guess I'll Be Seeing You"), the sultry voice of his friend Jill Staveley ("Everything You Believe Is A Lie"), or the slightly rough-edged one of Jenny Mitchell ("Municipal Monarchs"), the overall effect is in every case a thoroughly pleasant contrast - one that, with Mitchell, recalls the Dawson-Green duet, and with Jill Staveley evokes the bucolic atmospheres sketched by the Peris couple, while with Mary Jane McCallum it almost seems to catapult the listener thirty years back in time, perhaps into some grotesque remake of "Grease".

The cherry on top of the (birthday) cake comes courtesy of the lyrics, marked by a biting irony, as in the exchange in "Everything You Believe Is A Lie" ("We'll never get married/ 'dating your sister") or in the tribute to the "dinosaurs" of bar-band rock ("Here's to all the dinosaurs that play guitar in dingy bars and hotels/ You never made the cover of the Rolling Stone but you cover Rolling Stones songs very well"). At times this same irony evolves, reaching peaks of lucid sarcasm, wonderfully exemplified by the entire lyric of "Happy Birthday To The End Of The World". Mathias's pen dwells irreverently on any subject whatsoever, from the battle between nature and progress to that between atheism and religion, from social issues to music, from love to death. The latter, in particular, is as ever a rather recurring theme, casting a dark shadow over the songs and reaching its peak in "Grave Situation", a sort of two-part revisiting of the Burton-esque "Corpse Bride", where betrayal, love and death become entangled in a melodramatic embrace.

The album closes with "Goodbye Ukulele", a delicate lullaby over whose notes the various instruments are gently dismissed one after another by Mathias, who then lets himself be lulled by the ukulele's solo picking. Judging by the title (and the lyrics), the closing track might seem like a farewell song, but don't be fooled: the overall mood of the piece makes it pretty clear that this is, after all, (yet another!) declaration of everyday affection, or better still, a loving lullaby. And so, while we wait for the starry dark to light up again with the morning warmth and for the magic of Happy Birthday to repeat itself upon waking, all we can do is join Mathias's voice, whispering along with him: goodbye, ukulele, goodbye.

This Enchanted Life

In this phase of extreme creativity, the Burning Hell don't seem to have the slightest intention of leaving their devoted listeners waiting. It's March 2009 when the third chapter of their adventure, Baby, hits the shops, once again on Weewerk and once again with cover art by Gabe Foreman (who will go on to create all the subsequent ones too). If Mathias Kom had turned to the comrades of his dark-cabaret-folk project during the recording sessions and bellowed Russell Crowe's famous battle cry from "Gladiator", he would have slipped into an entirely credible role: barely a year on from its predecessor, the Ontario outfit's sweeping, darkly-tinted folk returns in a more energetic and forceful guise, thanks above all to an imposing rhythm section that bursts joyfully into the songs as if wanting to take part in the "happy event" itself. Whether that event refers to the release of a new album, the daily rebirth of man, or the birth of an actual flesh-and-blood puppy matters little - and in the end, one doesn't necessarily rule out the others.

The latest addition to the Kom household has fun crawling about among the most disparate genres, from the madcap folk-rock of "The Things That People Make, Part 2" to the Bregovic-esque Balkan folk of the instrumental "Mosquito", passing through the cabaret theatrics of "The Berlin Conference" and the fragile, porcelain-like noir minuet of "Grave Situation, Part 3".

But not the whole album sticks to upbeat tones: if it's true, as Mathias himself claims, that "every good album needs a slow song or two", the Canadian singer-songwriter fulfils that duty more than admirably, crafting with "Everybody Needs A Body (To Be Somebody)" a poignant folk ballad, where his deep, dark baritone stretches out smoothly over a melancholy bed of drums and harmonica.

The Burning Hell's new creation carries within it the innocent curiosity of childhood and the sarcastic awareness of maturity, fused together into a bitter disenchantment. It's no coincidence that the record opens and closes with a baby's cry, a symbol of the joy and the drama that inseparably accompany every (re)birth. Rather telling, in this respect, are the lyrics of "Old World", which express, with a smile on their lips, the tragic disillusionment of adulthood set against the naivety of youth (transposed respectively onto infancy and life in the womb), standing as the banner song of the entire album.

Once again, as already in Happy Birthday, Kom proves himself a more-than-brilliant songwriter, combining in his lyrics a marked tendency toward (self-)irony with a fluent linguistic command, and a fervid inventiveness with an easy writerly skill. In the stories of Baby, as in the older ones already in the catalogue, life dances with death in a tragicomic theatrical representation, weaving together love stories ("And now all three men and lady have made the trip to Hades/ Their love burns the hottest fires to ash and sends the demons panicking!") with naturalistic vignettes ("The baby ant starts as a gleam in the daddy ant eyes/ And all the ants they are going to die"), apocalyptic forecasts ("When the world ends, will it end with a bang? Will the sky turn black? Will we have some time to pack?") with improbable fetal amarcord ("And from the uterus I planned out the world I would create/ I'd ride a scooter or a bus and I would go on dates").

The album closes with the Moldy Peaches-esque "Everything Will Probably Be Ok", which sees Mathias Kom duet with Jenny "Omnichord" Mitchell, as already happened on previous records with "Municipal Monarchs", but here the dreamy chimes of the glockenspiel give way to a dry picking worthy of the best anti-folk tradition. The storyteller gives full vent to all the self-irony in his nature, questioning both his music and his own way of facing life, and in the back-and-forth exchange with Jennie (who here plays something of a devil's advocate… and no definition was ever more fitting!) the frontman ventures into one of the most entertaining lyrics of his entire output. Amid the confetti and streamers of this closing exchange of lines, Mathias also finds room to bid his audience farewell: "The album's almost done/ But we had lots of fun", he says, almost swallowed up by a triumphant blast of Hammond and horns. After all, in a world where everything is sadness and desolation, the only real weapon for survival is not taking yourself too seriously.

Recorded in the spring of 2009 after a winter of isolation ("The Shining-style, but without the blood") in the Yukon, This Charmed Life is the odd fourth chapter in Mathias Kom's musical adventure, his least collaborative record by far under the Burning Hell banner. On tiptoe. The Canadian's return comes this way, as a surprise and rather low-key, with a handful of tracks available in digital format online and on a limited-edition vinyl, sold only at concerts. Too long to be an EP, too short to be a full-length. So what is it, exactly? The leader of the Peterborough-based band shrugs and leaves the decision to the listeners: in the end, what matters to him is the pleasure of making music while having fun and the chance to share it with people. Kom's latest work sheds the carnivalesque component of previous albums and, largely distancing itself from its direct predecessor, Baby, transports us into a more intimate, singer-songwriter dimension, bringing to the fore that noire mélancolie that has always set Burning Hell's output apart and that found its finest expression in the songs of Happy Birthday.

The mournfulness of an impeccably crystalline ukulele, the sweetness of the cello, the depth and warmth of Mathias's voice: these are the essential ingredients of this new collection, to which are added orchestral touches and assorted noise effects, distributed across the tracks with skill and restraint. What follows is a string of acoustic delicacies marked by well-turned nuances and subtle shifts in register, ranging from the playful folk-rock of "The Things That People Make, Part 3", presented here in a "West Coast Version" that's lighter and far more convincing than the one previously released, to the ballad form of the splendid "Earthquake & Volcano", lit up by the candor of ukulele and cello, passing through a springlike folk sound occasionally enriched by the electronic sleights of hand of Walter Bloodway and often shadowed by the heavy cello of Darcy McCord ("Last Winter", "Don't Let Your Guard Down", "Northern Life"), Mathias's only guests on this occasion.

The LP's central themes are once again life and death, always tackled with the biting irony and subtle sarcasm that have by now become the signature trait of Burning Hell's music.

The album opens with an obituary, "Robert's Bad End", but from the very first words Kom utters, the Peterborough songwriter's tragicomic approach is immediately clear: "Robert, you were such an idiot, but nobody blames you for it/ You saw neither the forest nor the trees, even when you worked as a logger". Most of the songs on this collection were written during a cold snap in December 2008, and tell of that harsh winter freeze, with televisions frozen solid and a hailstorm of frozen little birds, of the dance of earth and fire at the origin (and the end?) of the world, of a curious confession from the soul of Julius Caesar during a séance, and of leaving behind a Peruvian life with its recurring situations and ever-identical faces.

Kom's stories are punctuated by three brief, highly intense instrumental interludes, written during a bus trip from Whitehorse, the capital of the territory to which the album is, incidentally, dedicated. "The Things That People Make, Part 3 (West Coast Version)", the final song on This Charmed Life (excluding the closing instrumental), is an affectionate dedication to life and to people, and the dark sarcasm of Kom's pen seems to make way for the genuine words of his heart, revealing a truth that is, in the end, at the core of all his band's music: despite its ugliness and its limits, "this charmed life is charming" and is always worth living.

Seven months pass and Burning Hell are back in action. The occasion is a collection of demos and assorted rarities, The Ones That Got Away: Volume One, also released in 2010. Amid a Scandinavian live recording and a couple of bare-bones reworkings, a more domestic and happily rough-around-the-edges side of Kom's music emerges, absorbed in the opener "Tired Of Playing Music" in a confidential pose, with nothing but the usual orchestration (for once fairly disciplined) and his trademark galloping irony to back him up.

Among the more interesting tracks is the understated, bittersweet bluegrass ballad "You Can Never Escape Your History", eloquent in illustrating once more the Canadian songwriter's outlook on life, the brisk voice-and-banjo of "Never Burn The Canadian Flag" (with barely-hinted gospel colorings), and the programmatic soliloquy that closes out the record, "Solo Only", a reflection through which Mathias exorcises any urge to launch into a solo career, reaffirming his love of sharing and collaboration, which always enrich the music.

If the elegant chamber-pop of "Intermezzo" seems to echo the early Rachel's, and "Bad Weather" puffs out its chest in the manner of Pearl Jam, "Animal City" makes no secret of being a heartfelt tribute to the Kinks. What emerges, then, is a charming little work that may delight completist fanatics but adds nothing substantial to what has already been said in the band's better records.

A brand new band, a record-breaking band

Five years after its official launch, Mathias Kom's creature has already come a long way. There's no sign of fatigue, though, and the prolific North American storyteller already has enough songs set aside for a new record.

Flux Capacitor, as it's titled, was released in May 2011 and has a distinct air of a reckoning. Sooner or later, in the course of a life, everyone ends up pondering the fleetingness of existence. Such reflections often crowd the mind when you find yourself in front of a cake, somewhat perplexed but necessarily smiling (for the sake of the customary commemorative photo), waiting to blow out the sparkle of that one extra wretched little candle. But when it comes to our man turning 33, this takes on a quite particular meaning, and in the thoughts that fill the Canadian songwriter's mind on that especially special day (the age of Christ…), the tragedy of life ends up dancing arm in arm with the comedy of death, as per the usual Burning Hell script (this link leads to the exclusive free-download track that Kom prepared for OndaDrops, ed.). And since "mortality is a huge drag", as Kom himself writes on his blog, why not make use of the "flux capacitor" invented by Doctor Emmett Brown from "Back to the Future" to liven things up a little?

Mathias and company's journey through time takes on the shape of an amarcord that wanders between the songwriter's recent and more distant memories, gathering a small autobiographical testimony in every song. In this sense, the album is without doubt the most personal work by the ukulele player at the helm of the outfit, which for the occasion was deeply renewed (with the addition of future partner Ariel Sharratt, guitarist Darren Browne, and drummer Jake Nicoll) and relocated from Ontario to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. This is reflected not only in the lyrics (it's worth mentioning Kom's brilliant calling card, which opens the album: “My name is Mathias and I came to say this/ I’ve got a big bushy beard and kissable lips/ And I carry all my fat in my ass and my hips/ The rest of me is skinny as a stick”), but also in instrumental and melodic choices that seem to carry the listener straight back into that late-eighties era when "it was great to be ten years old".

The main architects of this journey through space and time are the horns, which frame the more danceable tracks like "Nostalgia", "Bedtime Stories", and "Let Things Slip Away" with their satiny notes, recalling the predominantly upbeat atmospheres of the band's fourth record, Baby. Kom really holds nothing back, not even a touch of extravagance in the Balkan-tinged "Pirates". But this record also gives plenty of room to the more "romantic" side of his music, to that sweet melancholy that has always characterized much of his output, from the brooding Happy Birthday to the more intimate This Charmed Life, and which perhaps finds its most mature expression here: the acoustic tracks on Flux Capacitor are shaped mostly around a gentle picking ("Like An Anvil", "Report Card", "One Works Day, One Works Night"), occasionally embellished by violin sighs, breaths of singing saw, and clarinet flutters ("Kings Of The Animal Kingdom", "Early Bird"), and even the horns end up bowing before such grace when Katie Baggs lends her voice alongside Mathias's on the dreamy "One Works Day, One Works Night", a cover of a song by Construction & Destruction.

Pointing out yet again Kom's extraordinary authorial skills might, at some point, seem excessive, almost redundant - all the more so given how overused the word "extraordinary" has become these days. But considering the lyrics penned by this minute Canadian songwriter, restating the point here feels almost like a duty. Over the course of the album, Mathias shrewdly surveys the most disparate subjects, from cult Eighties films to bedtime stories, from respect for animals to the difficulties of coupledom, filtering his stories through his usual, by-now well-worn irony.

He doesn't stop there, though, also showing off a pronounced creativity in crafting his always quite original stories, as well as a refined mastery in playing with words and building settings that are stimulating every time, even on an interpretive level. A case in point is the splendid "Like An Anvil", where Kom dwells on the scene in "Back to the Future" where, at the school dance, Marty (the unforgettable protagonist played by Michael J. Fox, ed.) tries to play guitar with the band on stage so that, out on the dance floor, his future parents will kiss and fall in love: using this bit of film as a pretext, Kom tells of the insecurities of a difficult time such as adolescence.

This journey through time aboard the Burning Hell's DeLorean comes to a close over the metallic notes of the reprise of "Stroke Of Genius" (another track with a remarkable lyric: "I suffered from a stroke of genius/ I woke to find my stupid side paralyzed"). Once we step out and turn to look at the gleaming bodywork of Kom and co.'s time machine, it almost feels like tasting that same sense of nostalgia Mathias describes in the album's second track: "In retrospect it all seems spectacular/ and I'd love to go back but I broke my flux capacitor". With the flux capacitor broken, it would seem impossible to go back and relive that same experience, catapulted back in time. But music transcends any kind of barrier and overcomes every obstacle, and to take another trip, listeners need only press "play" on their player again.

For the Canadian crew, 2012 is a crucial year both for settling the lineup and for breaking in a formation that live seems to give, if anything, its very best, with shows that are always quite different but also as engaging as few others: intimate, fiery, hilarious. The real triumph, in this sense, comes on the sixth and seventh of July, when the band sets a rather bizarre record: they play ten shows of at least half an hour each, in ten different European countries - from Germany to Italy, wrapping up in the medieval castle of Šmartno, Slovenia - in just twenty-four hours. The feat succeeds and, though not officially recognized by the Guinness World of Records for trivial reasons (no air travel involved), it proves an excellent promotional boost for a niche, barely visible band like Burning Hell.

It doesn't take more than a few months for the next record to arrive. In February 2013, the EP Old, New, Borrowed, Blue comes out on Headless Owl, the small label Mathias co-owns. It opens with a mash-up of a (inevitably goofy) choral revisiting of Phil Collins's superclassic "In The Air Tonight" and its homegrown equivalent, "I Love the Things That People Make", reignited in a lush new variant by the Canadian band in its new incarnation. It's not the only cover of someone else's song, nor the only dip into their own past: while "Barcade Song" is a Grandaddy-esque cover of Berlin-based songwriter Heiko Gabriel, better known under the moniker Horror Me, "Dance Dance Dance" is also dusted off from their debut, beefed up in sound for the occasion at Ramin Bijan and Norman Nitzsche's studio in Berlin. Rounding out the picture are a crooked but charming miniature with (cheerful) Caribbean overtones ("Schoolyard Scrappers") and a sort of teaser for the imminent new full-length, presented in a bare-bones, not-yet-full-optional arrangement ("Realists").

All in all, a decent appetizer, though it doesn't really give a sense of the gem Burning Hell are about to give their devoted fans. The appointment is set a couple of months later and promises to be the most complete investigation into urban fauna that our man has ever undertaken.

Mathias Kom knows all too well how multifaceted human reality can be, having explored it far and wide armed only with biting irony (and his inseparable ukulele) over the course of his brief but already significant career as an offbeat one-man band: from the local bigwigs of Tick Tock, to the dinosaurs of bar gigs in Happy Birthday, from the dancers and novelists of Baby to the buccaneers of Flux Capacitor, down to the school bullies on the recent EP. Intrigued and fascinated by the surprising richness of a humanity that's unhinged yet always compelling, almost as much as the Woody Guthrie "photographer without a camera" of "Bound For Glory", the talented Canadian songwriter at the helm of Burning Hell writes and crafts a truly superlative little album, tellingly titled People, assembling nine portraits both tender and fierce into a fresco that keeps the distinctive traits of his effervescent art vivid, while not ruling out loftier ambitions either. From go-getting captains of industry and adventurers to bored travelers, from dreamers doomed to forever play wallflower to amateur rappers with a sense of omnipotence matching that of cult masters: within the folds of People, Kom has fun collecting and pillorying contemporary manias and tics, as if he were a bizarre entomologist in love with our decline. What makes his surveying all the more bitter is the fact that he includes himself, with no way out, among those left hanging, awaiting damnation, for having betrayed, once the die was cast, the adults they dreamed of becoming back when nothing was yet compromised.

Musically the album marks a further step forward from the good work already shown on the Canadian collective's last few records, with meticulous attention to detail and lovely touches of color (often entrusted to Ariel Sharratt's clarinet) that never tip over into brass-band caricature. Much of the credit goes to the production, robust but never overdone (we'd even dare say the fateful "finally mature"), the work of seasoned hands Norman Nitzsche and Ramin Bijan, who recorded the nine tracks together with those of the EP, its fraternal twin, at their Berlin studio. This time, the almost obligatory reference point seems to be the lively Elvis Perkins of "In Dearland" (the dusky western of the closing "Industrialists", but above all "Holydaymakers", with its lovely guitar coda that combines visceral feel and restraint without lapsing into sterile, formulaic virtuosity), although from the opening bars one runs into a clean, fragrant roots-rock à la Counting Crows, with Kom's voice closely recalling the nimble, sly delivery of Mike Doughty. It's the more sophisticated (and less adventurously experimental) side of Soul Coughing that's happily echoed in "Sentimentalists", the most relaxed yet still thoroughly considered track, while in the winding instrumental corridors of the following "Barbarians", charged with a great playful, circus-like verve, it's easy to spot the best of Clientele.

What stands out is the precision, the aptness of lyrics that are as usual strongly visionary, the harmonious choral quality of all seven musicians involved, as well as the exquisite craftsmanship of a folk sound married to electricity in a sublime display of musical artisanship. Burning Hell nail a tone somewhere between confidential and worldly-wise that proves utterly convincing, often made lively by the horns and loose enough to strike a miraculous balance between emotion and calligraphy, coming across as genuine and compelling. The roster of reference names widens to include, on "Realists", the Decemberists and their imitators (like the frantic The Builders and The Butchers), in a rustic scene complete with drunken saxes (Beirut-style), while the frenzied "Amateurs Rappers" recalls a host of minor but eclectic Americana acts (Ohtis, for instance) and stands as one of the frontman's most brilliant exercises in style (between sensational dialogues and razor-sharp patter), excelling more at slippery, eel-like spoken delivery than at singing proper.

Also impossible to leave out are the lighter, more carefree Okkervil River (the wonderfully candid, sixties-diorama feel of "Wallflowers"), the ones hooked on jaunty jangle-pop. Hovering over everything, too, is the ghost of an impossible, expressionist Bill Callahan, who finally takes shape ("Travel Writers") in a number of disarming, superb mimicry: the adherence to the model is total, the debts owed are heavy indeed, though read as a tribute, it can be forgiven and enjoyed for the lovely illusion it ultimately is.

On this, his sixth full-length outing, Mathias Kom leaves behind, in short, the pleasant folk vignette-sketching he had seemed destined to forever bind his Burning Hell to. He sets aside any "Balkan" temptation, along with the dark or overly cramped tones of certain past pages. He cleanly trims away the more convoluted solutions of his own repertoire to draw strength from the simplicity of his new arrangements. The aim was a record that was both more ambitious and more accessible at once: a test passed with flying colors.

Good things come in fours too

Although no new Burning Hell studio album came out, 2015 is an intense, rewarding year for Mathias. It opens in April with the release of the Canadian band's first live album, Live Animals, soon followed by two albums effectively made by Mathias and Ariel, his life partner, alone, either under their own name or alongside a few select friends. The new outfit The Fox opens shop with an off-the-cuff, self-titled album released in quick succession. The double couple behind it includes, besides Kom and partner, their friend Stanley Brinks aka André Herman Düne (already a guest star on People) and his significant other Clemence Freschard.

Despite the fine cast, the scope stays too sketch-like, laid-back and sparse, too idly jokey, with too few sparks between writing and execution (the cuteness of "Please Let Me Fall In Love") to coalesce into an artistically solid project worth the purchase, with its overdone "four friends around the campfire" communal vibe (entertaining at times but utterly idle, see "Cocktails") and its somewhat one-note acoustic setup. With Brinks taking the expressive lead (the sirocco-drenched chant "Di Di Dilli Di Di"), the laid-back mood tends toward the overblown and the drowsy, growing tiresome well beyond what's warranted. The result is a divertissement for a select few, the kind that only really entertains those who made it, and barely anyone else.

A different story is Don't Believe The Hyperreal, a gentle, perfectly measured record, co-credited to Kom and Sharratt, released by Headless Owl in November. The new compositions penned by the small, bearded Ontario songwriter are chamber-like yet airy, needing nothing more than the shading of a clarinet or a placid caress of guitar to seduce, still carried by that immaculate baritone modulation now legitimately chasing after the sacred monster Bill Callahan ("Somebody To Duet With"). At times they recall the duets between Stuart and Isobel in Belle & Sebastian's golden years ("The Love That Treats You Good", "In The Future"), though the parody here looks further back, to the soft Canadian folk of the Sixties.

A trial as transparent as it is engaging, then, stripped of the usual freak-folk contrivances, cabaret affectations and easy caricature, in order to rediscover the ground zero of the love song, perhaps with that touch of humour that never hurts and feels like the cherry on top. Picture a first date recounted in a balance between fairy tale and autobiography, with that undertone of sarcasm that's never bitter and is almost moving. It's "Fuck The Government, I Love You", and in a slowed-down version it will also serve as the lead single on the following album. Here, though, it doesn't steal the scene from that other statement of identity in which a proud Mathias sings apertis verbis "I don't sing for reviewers or reviews, every song I sing is for you", while the usual Brinks accompanies him on ocarina and Freschard joins Ariel on backing vocals. Forget the hyperbole, they seem to suggest, the tabloid romances and the mythical silver screen couples fixed in the cover collage (including the protagonists of "Gangster Story" and "Schegge di follia"). Better the improbable but authentic and touching ones, like Maurice Sendak – author of "Where the Wild Things Are" – and his psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, paid tribute to by Sharratt in the closing track.

Intimate, inspired, steeped in a romanticism that's never mawkish, Don't Believe The Hyperreal is a small, delightful album that wins over the listener largely thanks to Ariel's enchanting performance, trimming away the rowdy, boisterous edges typical of the full band.

The full line-up returns just four months later, sharper than ever. The focus of that formidable camera that is Mathias Kom's storytelling chooses this time to push the bizarre humanity of People into the background, now blurred and indistinct, in order to concentrate once again exclusively on the piercing gaze directed at the "I" and the "we" — interchangeable at will — of a rock band that has always fully overlapped with its volcanic deus ex machina. The folk-cabaret of The Burning Hell thus returns right on schedule, albeit in its most autobiographical guise, inclined toward the lively vignette-sketching that is something of a trademark for the Canadian collective.

If the reflections remain steeped in bitterness, the nostalgic tone never manages to sink their caustic outlook, and the ironic edge is confirmed on Public Library, their seventh LP on record, the best blessing this band is capable of bestowing. Their narratives continue in the name of an eccentric, wordy brass-band folk that doesn't shy away from occasional streaks of blues and jazz, since any form of contamination in Kom's bag of tricks is, as ever, welcome. The lyrics are the usual torrential streams of consciousness from the Peterborough musician, livelier than ever on the opener, in contrast to the orderly counterpoints of the instrumental parts. Losing yourself in his proverbial outpourings remains a pleasure, even when the songs don't quite reach the epic enchantment of his best work from the past. The author's classificatory bulimia is here limited to a categorizing subtitle depending on which literary genre is being imitated at any given moment.

So here's the "romantic comedy" of the returning "Fuck The Government, I Love You", a bittersweet yet deeply tender ballad and a kind of fictionalized account of Ariel and Mathias's first meeting at a New Year's Eve party, already featured on the lovely duets collection the two released just a few months earlier: it's hands-down the best title on the record, containing all the marginal poetry Kom is capable of, his frankness, his razor-sharp wit. In the "literary criticism" of "Give Up", meanwhile, a mantra is set that traces the storyteller's joyful surrender to disenchantment, touched by the miserable, unresolved end of his personal myth Herman Melville. The band from the island of Newfoundland serenely carries on with its colorful carousing, a musical commentary that nonetheless gives up almost entirely on harshness in favor of a festive, triumphant tone, one that feels like a mocking countermove against surrendering outright to bare fatalism.

Then there's inevitably the "coming-of-age novel", a breezy journey back through the frontman's two-decade-long liaison with pop music, sentimental in evoking memories that could easily be our own, while at the same time resistant to any surface-level sentimentality. But "Men Without Hats" also stands as a hymn to the liberating power of rock'n'roll, an unrivaled refuge and source of inspiration, here delivered in the style of their friends Herman Dune. And then there's the "crime report" of "Good Times", youthful rebellion recounted with the same candor as the earliest Belle & Sebastian, those still in love with everything and not yet tainted by mannerism. It's from certain stylistic and emotional details like these that "Public Library" reveals itself, more than ever, as a carefree, featherlight invitation to carpe diem, and at the same time an affectionate celebration of an idealized past, even in its less joyful moments.

With "The Road" the band leans into a jittery, grain-streaked rock that still doesn't skimp on its good-natured smiles. All the while, a string of mishaps from a recent UK tour is recounted, emblematic of the wandering life of touring musicians — short on fortune, perhaps, but certainly not on humanity or good stories. Even when things aren't exactly going swimmingly, The Burning Hell's real treasure lies entirely in that inexhaustible cauldron of funny, illuminating references, in that magical storytelling art that shows no sign of running dry with the passing years — quite the opposite, in fact. Surprises can be waiting for the listener around every corner or in every pithy one-liner. Take the "fantasy" vignette of "Two Kings", for instance, a flight of imagination through the forests of Ontario (in a chalet where Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson would live in seclusion, sheltered from the wreckage of the stardom that turned them into grotesque masks) — truly lovable, intimate, utterly delicate, almost stripped-down compared to the usual over-the-top standards of the North American crew; or else in the intriguing minimalism of the closer, a remarkably considered soliloquy on the age-old dispute between devotees of the novel and fans of nonfiction.

It may sound paradoxical, but it's precisely when Kom reins in his ramblings, opting for a dense, meaningful essentiality and an even-keeled pace freed from his usual frenzy, that his creation becomes, for once, more likeable. At least that's what emerges from his latest dispatches, much to the dismay of rockstars crushed by loneliness, and of those among their potential admirers who always seem to have other plans for the evening.

In the middle of a world tour of some eighty dates, at the end of 2017 the Burning Hell once again looked human misery in the face, giving a nod to the grim reaper and setting aside for a moment the (superlative) genre-hopping divertissements of their most recent records. Their eighth full-length release, Revival Beach, lingers over a thoroughly justified apocalypse from the most varied perspectives, whether it's a desolate piano bar at three in the morning or a wedding party crashed by gatecrashers down to the very last glass of wine. It blends nostalgia and global warming, the brutal abuses of police in the years of "Black Lives Matter" or the policies of ruthless offshoring to China, keyboard warriors driven to their deaths by extreme online invective, and Scottish spies recycled as nannies for a phantom bastard child of Hitler and Unity Mitford: the usual Mathias Kom, in other words, garrulous and hilarious, who this time around has trimmed his densely populated creation down to a trio, with just Darren Brown's bass to accompany him and his lady (who on this occasion also plays drums).