Member Since: 8/18/2005
Band Website: bone-box.com
Band Members:
Jay Taylor - singing, archtop & jumbo acoustic guitar
John Cooper - upright bass
Alex Balch - pedal-steel, electric and Spanish guitar
Ben Taylor - drum traps & percussion
Susanne Mottram - keyboards
Bob Dinn - trumpet, flugel & accordion
Peter Marshall - violin, mandolin & percussion
Andrew Marshall - violin
Georgina Leach - violin
Tom Barnes - banjo & acoustic guitar
Chris Calcutt - trombone
Influences: WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAID...
"An exceptionally accomplished work of heart" MOJO
"Few albums set out their world as confidently as Manchester's Bone-box" THE TIMES (LP OF THE YEAR)
"Bone-Box weave webs of faded fairytales and cross palms with slivers of shattered tales of the everyday thrown from an out of control carousel...a ghostly gospel of drama and dented dreams far more feral than the plaintive lap-steel sometimes suggests. As an epic whole, they are The Master and Margharita filmed by Glenn Ford and scripted by Tom Waits with executive producer Leonard Cohen" AMERICANA-UK.COM
"Superb...A dark yet hugely rewarding experience and roots rock at it's best. A stunning yet totally subtle work of understated genius" BIG ISSUE ALTERNATIVE ROCK LP OF THE YEAR
"There are plaintive pianos, a twilight cast of characters and sardonic poetry to the lyrics...An intelligent, genre-busting, dark masterpiece" MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
"'Death Of A Prize Fighter' is a work of pure pleasure and originality. It's stunningly crafted, majestically performed and totally absorbing - a delightful attack on the aural senses. Diverse, rammed full of grit and overflowing with musical brilliance this album is about as good as anything I've heard for an awful long time" TOXICPETE.CO.UK
"This is brilliant. I don't remember the last time I listened to something new and it literally made my soul ache. It's strange and amazing and heart warming and heart breaking and wonderful" LEEDS MUSIC SCENE
"'Death Of A Prize Fighter' marries its brooding, bruised feel and a distant foreboding that reflects the darker Northern skies these tracks were penned under, with Americana flourishes and a musical yearning and heart located over the other side of the Atlantic" NEW-NOISE.NET
"Bone-Box are capable of being engrossingly introspective and surgingly primal at the drop of any hat. Indeed, Death Of A Prizefighter sweeps across emotions and heartaches with such a wandering hand, it’s difficult to know whether to cry or cheer each turn. Maybe just doing both is the best course of action" BBC.CO.UK
"If you are really looking for a revival in British guitar music, Manchester's Bone-box may be the combination you have been dreaming of - Bona-fide brilliant" NME
"Perfectly metered blasts of dark, frequently bleak, occasionally joyous country, blues and Cajun jazz, 'Death Of A Prize Fighter' is simply titanic. Superbly atmospheric, a blend of Psycho shower-scene strings and spaghetti western theme tunes - this collection sits comfortably amongst my albums of the year list" BIG CHEESE
"Haunting and immediately reminiscent, whirling, merry-go-round music, is hardly a description, it's an aspect of something truly well composed and beautiful. Bone-box, to me, stand out as a band that'll still sound fresh in 23 years time; 'Death of a Prize Fighter' is an album that has truly earned the word, 'timeless'" RANDOM MAGAZINE
"The album is full of songs of downtrodden humanity, despairing and pleading yet accepting of the state of the world and everywhere those vocals, sounding like a man on the edge of the world, unsure whether to stay or jump. The passion and majesty in the playing crosses so many boundaries that there is no point in restricting it to any single genre: just call it American music at its finest" BLUES MATTERS MAGAZINE
"Bone-Box have created another classic album – the sound of the “Deep North†– a collection of traditional sounds ripped, re-arranged, repasted and regrown, to be sealed with a loving joy of life and music. If you can be both authentic and original, then this surely is the measure" MANCHESTERMUSIC.CO.UK
"Lambchop's dearkhearted British cousins" FLUX MAGAZINE
"Damn Fine" TIME OUT LONDON
"Absolutely nothing like what you'd expect from the former home of the Hacienda, but the slide guitars and Jay Taylor's ciggy pipes are very Rainy City" AUSTIN CHRONICLE
"Then I arrived at a club called Habana Calle 6 just in time for the end of a performance by Manchester, England's Bone Box, whose recent album "Death of a Prize Fighter" is an example of moody, ethereal but wonderfully melodic Southern Gothic rock, with strong hints of Nick Cave. (Bloodshot Records' Nan Warshaw was there and raving about the group.)" SUNTIMES.COM
"That said, I'm passing on some suspect tips of my own. Among the dark horses of this year's festival are Bone Box from Manchester, England - dreamy, dirgey, wonderful" NPR.ORG (National Public Radio)
"Against all odds, Manchester's Bone-Box take on the homespun heart and soul of the American deep south and come away a mite weather-beaten, battered and bruised, but with their honour intact. Their stylised interpretation of gritty, downbeat country vibes, desert horns and Mariachi marches, retains it's northern English roots throughout, while letting their murky Texicana fantasies run riot. They lurch with beguiling abandon through imaginary rustic tumbleweed strewn badlands, never forgetting to pack a decent song" LEICESTERBANGS.CO.UK
"Death Of A Prizefighter is exactly what Manchester needs; a worn-out, grown-up, world-weary, wonderfully sprawling yet supremely tight record, dressed up in its Sunday best and dragged through the proverbial hedge backwards" BBC.CO.UK
"Laid back and beautiful...songwriting genius" JOCK ROCK
"I'm transfixed by Jay's whispery-growl, the way the band go from loud to quiet to super-frenetic in a heartbeat and songtitles like 'St Jay's Infirmary' and 'Talking Christ Down from the Cross'. All of a sudden I've discovered a new favourite band and I strongly recommend their brilliant album 'Death of a Prize Fighter" SOUNDSXP.COM
"A beguiling musical tapestry...there really aren't any bones to pick with a record as fulfilling as this. Bone-box are definitely out there on their own!" KERRANG
"Jay Taylor could easily be Tom Wait's errant sibling" UNCUT
"Lyrics that sometimes sound like Milton...a sound that somehow transplants Manchester to a plain near Tucson" Q MAGAZINE
"Dark, suave, nourish, this is a startling debut LP, that takes Alabama 3's party outside for a thorough and unjust working over. Special stuff" VANITYPROJECT.CO.UK
"Darkly insidious and wonderful" CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE
"Haunting brilliance on an unparalleled level, 'Death Of A Prize Fighter' is a quite unique sounding album, bridging the Anglo-American gap between country, blues and jazz on both sides of the pond. Listening to it is a journey of epic proportions, a veritable self-questioning kaleidoscope of idea's, sounds and musings; and if you dare enter, you might just find salvation" WHISPERIN & HOLLERIN
"'Death Of A Prize Fighter' is a meandering stream of guitar-based moments tinged with confident orchestral sounds all bewitching enough to rival Mercury Rev's finest moments" HIGH VOLTAGE
"Shudderingly Ace" MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
"Bone-box are a lesson in simplicity, discipline and imagination it's clear that they pack a powerful and unique punch" NME
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"Bone-box make the White Stripes look like S Club Juniors...Working the Ribald Ratio' growls like a mutha... A layered brass boosted clutch of great songs" CITY LIFE
The kind of perfectly-sourced roots-rock that’d easily arm wrestle all 12 members of Gomez to the floor" NME
"Sublime songs that take a nod from the aforementioned Beta Band and Gomez as well as from the swamp blues of Tom Waits†BIG ISSUE IN SCOTLAND
“They have a cinematic approach, a feverish melange of atmospheric moods and textures, narrative grit, sweat and dirt†METRO NEWS LONDON
"You just know when you hear something that has the x-factor that other just don't, well this certainly has that - The structure is quite amazing, overall it's spectacular" 5/5 YWCR RADIO
"A prodigious river of a song, with some wonderful chord changes" HOT PRESS
"Laidback, slingback Rock and Roll Americana...Lashings of lazy energy...the perfect soundtrack to escape a deep south prison with" MANCHESTERMUSIC.CO.UK
"A mournful pedal-steel and mariachi trumpet led oddity sung in a fifty a day, drunk tramp in the street voice" JOYZINE
Sounds Like: Aw, just read what those other characters said up above, some of them aren't so bad.
Record Label: Fat Northerner Records
Type of Label: Major