Vintage Tractor Collector review TLONF……

Orroight moy luvvas? Yur, them wacky scoundrels
Madness ‘ave released their new album, ennit?

‘T’s a proper job, an’ all, roight? Best thing
this reporters ‘eard since The Wurzels. The roight
catchy anthem We Are London is top-notch stuff for
lestening to in yur Trattor, Dust Devil is like the
Mad Ventage of ol’, but the best track is MKII,
which Oi’m led to believe is about a Massey
Ferguson. In fact, this gurt lush album is just
like my scarecrow - outstanding in it’s field.

Cheers droive. Owen T Nutter

THE INDEPENDANT REVIEW THE ALBUM

Album: Madness, The Liberty of Norton Folgate (Lucky Seven)
(Rated 4/ 5 )

It’s probably stretching a point to suggest that the current 2-Tone
revival says as much about our present social corrosion as any
learned sociological treatise; though certainly, the last time
blue-eyed ska bands were this popular, the country was riven with
inner-city riots and being bled dry by complete bankers. Sound
familiar?

But while the gloss may have been taken off the Specials comeback
by the non-involvement of Jerry Dammers, the return of Madness lacks
no such lustre. After 2005’s insipid Dangermen Sessions set of reggae
covers, even the one-time nutty boys themselves accepted that, to all
intents and purposes, the game was up.

Which just makes the success of The Liberty of Norton Folgate all the
more extraordinary. A concept album about London town might seem no
great surprise, but the aplomb and intelligence with which it’s been
executed may surprise those who have taken the band’s “tasty geezers”
image as their actual character. The album derives its title, and
its 10-minute title-track suite, from a short stretch of Bishopsgate
in east London which until 1900 was administered by the inhabitants
rather than the surrounding boroughs, accordingly attracting a
populace of rogues and artists.

For Madness, it clearly represents the essence of the freewheeling
Cockney spirit sketched out in the album’s 14 songs: as they claim
in between the blizzard of namechecked locations in the opening
“We Are London”, anything is possible “if we all live together as
one big family”. And so it proves, across the capital, from the
Kentish Town celebrated in typical jaunty good-time style in “NW5″,
to the Chelsea Mews equivalent of a bedsitter vignette retailed
in “Mk II” (a Jag, rather than a Cortina). “Sugar and Spice” is
especially well-wrought, a Squeeze-style short story of youthful
romance, marriage, and inevitable disillusion set to piano and
reedy organ: “Sugar and spice/ Everything was so nice/ Now it’s just
not the same/ It’s bitterness and pain”. Similar territory is
covered in the haunting “That Close” and “On the Town”, about a
relationship past its snog-by date; while elsewhere “Idiot Child”,
“Rainbows” and “Forever Young” chart the progress of scallywag kids,
the latter pithily summarising youth as “paradise lost and
innocence gone”.

Musically, it may be the band’s most successful work, their ambition
summarised both in the morphing movements of the title track, and
in the way that the “Clerkenwell Polka” transforms from tuba-driven
oompah band into a sort of double-time Balkan/ Dixieland knees-up,
without straying too close to Chas and Dave country.

Download this: “Sugar and Spice”, “NW5″, “Clerkenwell Polka”,
“That Close”, “Forever Young”, “The Liberty of Norton Folgate”

Reviewed by Andy Gill

MADNESS - The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
****1/2
The Sun

WELL, it beats selling Birds Eye frozen food on the telly.

Suggs hasn’t had this much attention for his music since he first
hoisted up his Baggy Trousers. With the current buzz building to a
deafening roar, I’m talking to the Madness singer about the band’s
first album of new songs in ten years… The Liberty Of Norton
Folgate. People are calling it their masterpiece.

Suddenly, he breaks off the conversation: “Hang on a minute, sorry.
There was a paparazzi queueing for me outside and I sort of waved.
I’ve just thought f***, did that look like a seig heil? Oh no! A
picture of Suggs seig heiling. I’d better give him a proper
picture.” He returns, somewhat relieved, to discuss the new album
with its fabulous title and 14 sax-fuelled tracks spanning an hour
of music.

I quickly clock the humour and spirit of the band’s best known
member remains fully and mischievously intact.

“You’re Simon from The Sun,” he continues. “I just had Olly from
The Observer. So your name has to start with the same letter as
the paper you write for.”

Think Madness and you think seven blokes welcoming us to the House
Of Fun, deciding This Must Be Love or simply Driving In My Car. They
danced their merry way through 214 weeks in the Eighties singles
charts with their insanely infectious ska-pop (a feat only matched by
UB40). But surely you won’t be thinking… “Oh yes, Madness, they’re
the creators of an ambitious concept album about London, a kind of
history lesson set to music.”

To borrow their catchphrase, they truly have gone “one step beyond”
with The Liberty Of Norton Folgate, arriving four years after covers
album The Dangermen Sessions Vol 1.

The title track is an extraordinary ten-minute epic which Suggs
describes as “progressive pop”, some achievement for a band
known for its snappy hits rarely breaking the three-minute mark.

“If you’d said to me when I was 18 that one day I’d do a ten-minute
song, I would have been very shocked and horrified. Basically it’s
just four or five songs stuck together… not too much
indulgent noodling on there.”

The song is named after a small pocket of central London sandwiched
between the City and Shoreditch, which, for a thousand years until
1900, ran its own affairs as a “liberty”.

In the 1800s, Norton Folgate had a population of around 1,500 but,
I ask, what kind of people lived there?

“It was the nutters, the musicians, the poets and the libertines,”
says Suggs. “If Madness had been around, that’s where we would
have lived.”

He got the idea from reading Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography,
then delved deeper into other history books about the capital.

“There was one by this vicar, William Taylor, who was sent to
Shoreditch ‘to test his vocation’. It talked about this
‘liberty’ which I felt had slipped through the gaps in history.

“I thought The Liberty Of Norton Folgate was such a great name
for a record. Every British person’s dream is to live slightly
outside the law, under the radar, running their own village society.

“It’s a very romantic notion.”

To launch the album, Madness reconvened their version of the ancient
area’s government at 4.30pm yesterday before playing a gig at the
cool Light Bar (originally a power station for the Great Eastern
Railway). “First, we’re going to make the beer 1908 prices, then
we’re having a sort of independence day to see how long we can get
away with it,” Suggs outlines the tiny republic’s manifesto.

But what will mayor Boris Johnson make of it all? I venture.
“He’s shown an interest but he’s too political for us. This
is a fun thing, a Madness day, not some party-political ping-pong.”

The fun bit aside, the new record amounts to a whole lot more
than the Norton Folgate saga with its brilliantly realised
arrangements, typically wry lyrics and not forgetting singalong
choruses.

A song like exuberant single Dust Devil would surely have been
a massive hit if released back in the day when Madness were the
kings of pop.

Here though, there’s always a thoughtful undercurrent to the
upbeat sound.

“Idiot Child is a very serious song about being treated like
an idiot,” says Suggs. “A universal theme.”

Loosely, the album is a warts-and-all celebration of the band’s
beloved hometown, a life-affirming romp through the streets of areas
like Clerkenwell and Kentish Town, ideal, believes Suggs, for
difficult economic times.

“We make a point of finding out when the next big recession is
happening… in close conjunction with the Government of course,”
he laughs. “They put our Mad sign in the sky and we have to come
again.”

On one hand contemporary, the album also evokes sepia-tinted
times past, when music hall provided entertainment for the masses.

Suggs picks up my point: “When I was a kid, there was that funny
old programme The Good Old Days with mustachioed blokes pushing
ladies in big dresses on flower-festooned swings, singing: Daisy,
Daisy give me your answer do, I’m half crazy all for the love of you.

“Obviously The Kinks and Ian Dury picked up on this thread of street
music. And now our album praises the working people but not in a
patronising way.”

As for the London theme, he says: “It’s strange. I was joking with
our guitarist about the concept but what have all our f*****g songs
been about? They’re all observational about what goes on around us.

“I’m not saying London’s better than anywhere else, just happens to
be where we grew up. There’s a lot of gloom and doom as well as fear
around at the moment, especially in London, but then the place has
always been in a state of flux. If you think London’s bad now, you
should have tried living in it in the Middle Ages or The Blitz with
bombs dropping everywhere.”

We Are London kicks off the album and acts as a mission statement
with the line, “You can make it your own hell or heaven.” Right now,
Suggs is happy living in the capital, even if his old stomping ground
of Camden has changed beyond recognition.

“London is not a worse place now but if I was mugged tomorrow I’d
probably say I didn’t like it. “It’s really down to how I feel on
a daily basis. At the moment, I like it a lot.” He reports that the
renewed interest in Madness is “just great”, with glowing reviews
suggesting they’ve just made their best ever album.

“We’re wary of reviews but I am very pleased,” Suggs continues.
“We put a hell of a lot of work into this record and, years ago,
I knew we had one good album left in us. “We could have made a nice
career out of playing our greatest hits, such great fun to do. “We’re
very privileged to be in a situation where people love us as much
as they do.”

The band from Camden Town started out in 1976 and today comprises
Suggs (born Graham McPherson), Mike Barson (Monsieur Barso),
Lee Thompson (Kix), Chris Foreman (Chrissy Boy), Mark Bedford
(Woody), Daniel Woodgate (Woody) and Carl Smyth (Chas Smash).

Remarkably for middle-aged men, youthful energy remains boundless.
How else could they still perform Baggy Trousers when they play live?

Suggs says: “I remember when I was about 30 (he’s 48 now) saying,
‘I doubt whether I’ll be playing this song forever.’ But that’s the
fun. We were friends at school and the whole raison d’etre of the
band is the fact we still enjoy it.”

One of the new songs, Forever Young, bottles up the Madness spirit.
“I was looking in my own kids’ eyes for that song,” explains the
singer. As much as old people teach young people, young people can
teach you when you get older. If you’re not careful, you can get
bitter and twisted about your failings and regrets. It’s important
to be young in your mind.”

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate is released on the band’s own label,
Lucky Seven Records. It gave them the freedom to create something
special.

“We had a lot of arguments and we couldn’t find a good label,” says
Suggs. “But we didn’t want to end up with some cottage industry
thing that no one was going to hear.

“We had to do it properly and professionally and have a system that
allowed us to follow through our vision.”

I suggest it all sounds terribly grown-up for an outfit known for
their madcap antics. “Yes, but we still try to use the same energy
and not to sound too self-intelligent. We write pop songs with the
perspective of being this old.”

Still, it must be hard getting all seven members singing from the
same hymn sheet? After all, complicated things like other interests,
relationships and fatherhood must come into play.

“The people we’re working with are not too pleased sometimes,” Suggs
replies. “They have to round us up on a regular basis. A combination
of band and normal life is a nice mixture for me.”

He pauses. Then he can’t resist adding: “Being in a band does give
you a reason to be juvenile.” His comment brings an early classic
to mind. All together now: “Madness, madness, they call it madness.”

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate is out now

Simon Coysn The Sun

NEWS OF THE WORLD REVIEW – 17th May
MADNESS The Liberty Of Norton Folgate ****
The Nutty Boys’ first set of new songs for 10 years, and one that’s actually better than their albums were in their ‘80s heyday. Back then, Suggs and co just made sure there were four classic singles on an album, with the other songs usually pretty iffy.
Aware that any new songs have to live up to the likes of Our House and One Step Beyond, they’ve knuckled down. Virtually everything here has a mighty chorus, funny lyrics and a tune worthy of slipping in among the old hits at their gigs. So good, it’ll make you forget Suggs’ dodgy fish fingers ads.

“Norton Folgate is Peter Ackroyd writing for The Kinks, it’s Sherlock Holmes in Albert Square, it’s a Mike Leigh movie of Parklife, it’s Passport To Pimlico meets Brick Lane, and it is Madness’s masterpiece.” - THE WORD

UNCUT- 4/5 star rating: “A concept album, and refreshingly, unexpectedly excellent.” By David Quantick.

As the Specials reunion - reunion, my copious arse - gets more publicity, one can only hope that this far more interesting 2-Tone-related event will get more coverage. Because Madness not only keep reforming (with all their old members, including their best songwriter), they also release new records with original songs on them. And now, in 2009, at a point in their history when you’d confidently expect them to be creeping about the gaff in elderly slippers looking for their reading glasses, Madness have instead made a really good album. Ambitious, tuneful, exciting, wise, and with a finale that kicks them up a level into an undreamed-of musical dimension.

Over the years, Madness have had quite a few false-ish starts. There was The Madness, a very odd semi-reunion album. There was Suggs’ karaoke solo album, there was the Dangermen collection…all target-missers on various levels. But The Liberty of Norton Folgate - a title which makes sense in context but is otherwise unlikely to be jamming up the ringtone sites - is Madness in both their pomp and their prime.

Like most grabs for reheated glory, it sounds like their entire career in one go. There are echoes of melancholy stompers like “The Sun And The Rain”; there’s the rocksteady, bass-heavy (lots of bass on this album!) “Forever Young”, which is a slightly less-grey cousin of “Grey Day.” Any number of brilliant Madness character sketches are recalled in the splendid “Idiot Child” (which also has the spectral quality of the post Mike Barson Mad Not Mad.) But none of these stylistic revisits are retreads. “Everything” is infused with some of the best melodies of the band’s career, and everything is enthused, too. The tiredness of Keep Moving and Mad Not Mad has been replaced with an older, but fresher, sound. Songs like “Forever Young” and “Sugar And Spice” sound like singles, and should be. Everything seems to gel - the arrangements are the best ever, the production is thoughtful and smart, and the influences melded perfectly (we all know Madness were more than the sum of Ian Dury and The Kinks, but we all chose to ignore the huge, conspicuous chunks of Mowtown and The Beatles also in there).

And there’s a new layer to Madness, as well. Previous efforts suffered because the band seemed unkeen to leave their comfort zone. Every musical territory that Madness had ever visited was revisited again and again, with diminishing returns (by the time Suggs got round to covering “I’m Only Sleeping”, the template was starting to look like tracing paper). But this time round, things are different. “Idiot Child” may be a short, sharp character sketch, but it’s more barbed and less cosy than before. “Africa” is Madness’ more extraordinary lyric in which for once they stop banging on about London (on an album obsessed with the capital to the extent it contains a song called “We Are London”) and write a song about, amazingly, leaving the capital and going to Africa in a dream. It’s a lyrical fantasia slightly related to Michael Nesmith’s “Rio” and unlike anything else in the Madness jukebox.

What else? Well, there’s “Clerkenwell Polka”, which is a spookier cousin of “Waiting For The Ghost Train” and contains the best and possibly first use of the word “rectilinear” in a song. There’s “NW5″, as good an entry point single to this album as anything. And - oh yeah! - there’s “The Liberty Of Norton Folgate” itself, which gets its own paragraph.

There’s a lot to say about “The Liberty Of Norton Folgate.” For a start, it’s 10 minutes long, which is unusual for a tune by Britain’s Official Greatest Singles Band. It’s a song simultaneously influenced by Ian Dury, Peter Ackroyd, Bollywood, Charles Dickens, Kurt Weill, John Barry, and, so far as I can tell, Muffin The Mule. It is in some ways The Pogues doing “Good Vibrations” and in others Oliver! performed by Prince Buster. Best of all, for a band who began their career in skinhead controversy while writing great songs about miscegenation, it’s a song that takes their obsession with London, the city of nations, to its logical conclusion, being a historical and musical tribute to a brilliant mixed-up mongrel culture. “In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant”, they chant, implying that such fears are for the weak of mind and chin. It’s a song that only Madness could write, and it is quite mad, a great argument against racism that makes you proud to be British, and a fantastic conclusion to a very, very good album.

Transcribed by Patrick Murphy

Review by Geoff Carter of Las Vegas Weekly.

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2009/may/28/madness/

British pop-ska band Madness has been making records and touring for
three decades, so it’s amazing that the band is known for exactly
three songs on this side of the Atlantic: the bouncy ska number “One
Step Beyond,” the treacly pop smash “Our House” and the witty “House
of Fun,” which remains unsurpassed as a cautionary lesson in how not
to buy prophylactics. They’re fun, karaoke-ready numbers, but they
don’t even begin to reveal the full strength of the band’s
songwriting—a gift that has apparently kept on giving judging from The
Liberty of Norton Folgate, the band’s ninth studio album (and first
collection of original material since 1999).

Improbably for a band that’s been playing and recording for as long as
Madness, Folgate is a fresh, energetic and audacious pop record, lush
in sound and thoughtful in manner. One of the best songs of the set,
“NW5,” neatly demonstrates everything Madness does really well: the
way the band builds songs on Mike Barson’s insistent keyboard jabs,
the arm-around-your-shoulder way in which singer Suggs delivers the
lyrics and the swoony string arrangements and horn charts that take
Madness’ music from the two-tone to the kaleidoscopic.

There are so many legitimately great songs on Folgate—the swaggering
hometown anthem “We Are London,” the perfectly preserved ska throwback
“Forever Young” and the epic, Kinks-like title track among them—that
the record could easily hold its own against the band’s last
greatest-hits compilation. It’s that familiar, and that good.

Rating 4 out of 5

Madness: The Liberty of Norton Fulgate

(Lucky Seven)

WITH The Specials reunion making headlines around the world, Madness
are back to reclaim their spot at the top of the 2-Tone table. Their
first original material in 10 years visits all the band’s styles of
old – the upbeat (Dust Devil), downbeat (Sugar And Spice) and zany
(Bingo) with Suggs’s clever lyrics centred on modern-day living. This
isn’t a band cashing in on past glories, more one making songs as
original as at any point in their 30-year career. The 10-minute title
track is a highlight, rounding off what might just be their strongest
release yet. JD

Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

Western mail…

But my album of the week is Madness’ The Liberty Of Norton Folgate.
As a baggy-trousered chart act, Madness irritate me; their music is
too often pastiche, but this is an album of genuine weight. It’s a
concept album about a town of outcasts on the fringe of Olde London
Town, but it mixes elements of jazz and folk with their usual
brilliant pop hooks and wonderful arrangements for piano and sax –
and singer Suggs is at his idiosyncratic best here.

It’s 15 tracks long and one of those albums that just keeps giving.

Gavin Allen

Huddersfield Examiner …

MADNESS: The Liberty Of Norton Folgate. An intriguing title from
a band that could no wrong in the early 80s with songs to stand the
test of time and Suggs has gone on to make himself a household name.
In those days they were fun – mad, even. Now this sounds so much
more serious. It’s an album with London at its heart, but, like the
city to a northern outsider, it’s short on smiles. A lot of deadpan
ska with their natural spark in short supply and you feel it only
lightens up in flashes. Mostly it’s virtual vaudeville. Baggy
trousers, it ain’t. The title, by the way, refers to their
successful campaign to save east London’s Folgate Street from
being developed into a 50-storey skyscraper.

The First Post

It is 30 years since Madness’s debut LP One Step Beyond launched
their remarkable career, said Christopher Barrett in Music Week.
This year “the band are celebrating the anniversary in style”:
their back-catalogue is set to be reissued by Union Square Music,
and they have released this new album. With its title inspired by
a once self-governing area of East London, The Liberty Of Norton
Folgate “finds the band drawing heavily on the heritage of their
home town for inspiration”.

Yet Madness today seem “less like chroniclers of London, than of
adult life, in all its complexity, disappointment and anxiety”,
said Andrew Perry in the Daily Telegraph. This album reminds us
that they have always been “masters of maudlin, bittersweet pop”.
Sugar & Spice looks back on “marital dreams gone sour, while
Idiot Child is a caustic portrayal of encouragement-free parenting”.
Grim themes, but “lovely, lovely music”.

(Verdict: three stars out of five)