Great review in UKs Sunday Times today for Drunkards Prayer 4/5 stars.

"The Cowboy Junkies are big fans of Over the Rhine, and it's easy to see what they like in Karin Berquist and Lindford Detweiler's sparse, slow and intensley personal songs. Pop music is full of break-up songs, but the core of Drunkard's Prayerseems to lie in songs such as Born, where Berquist and Detweiler - whose own marriage nearly fell apart last yeear - examine the tricky subject of staying together. Berquist's voice is so strong that it can even tempt you to sit through another cover of My Funny Valentine, but she doesn't just have a great voice, she knows exactly how to use it with power and precision. The way, on Spark, that the desparate edge in her voice is suddenly juxtaposed with a sweet, shimmering double-tracked verse is stunning. ME"

Let's hope EMI get behind the album with some cash and airplay. The time has come...

My local intelligent record shop has been trying to get stocks of Drunkards Prayer before the ST review & has been asked for it three times since. I played him Born, & Little Did I Know, also Latter Days & Show Me off my Ipod today. Sadly it would appear that there is little or no stock in this country. He tried to order DP, GDBD, & Ohio, without success. This apparently is not unusual, He couldn't get Eveningland when Hem played in Bristol, & was allocated 5 copies of Catalpa following Jolie Holland's good S.Times review which went in 1 day & when she played The Anson Rooms there was no stock to be had.

This seems a ludicrous situation, one I appreciate that is outside the control of the band. There seems little point in my asking them to consider playing here when they haven't anything to promote, this has to be the best moment ever to get OTR broken in the UK, & those with their fingers on the marketing pulse are on holiday, or asleep. Just for the record, The Borderline in London & The Fleece in Bristol seems to be becoming a popular mini tour for similar artists, please, PLEASE...

Tim

amazon.co.uk has it in stock, tmuk.

Yes they do, although even there stock fluctuates, I & presumably anyone else who reads here bought it from Paste on the preorder. I'm thinking more of the browser who looks at a disc & impulse buys it because they saw a review or a mention on Bob Harris or something. Amazon's penetration in the UK is much lower than in the USA, many more discs are bought over shop counters, & record shops are much more social than I have found them in the USA, ref the difference between High Fidelity book & film, the culture doesn't translate, but every "serious" record buyer in this country will know somewhere like the shop described in the book (the one mentioned in my first post was Disc n Tape in Bristol ). I was bewailing the apparent lack of marketing push from EMI to capitalise on a good review. As with everyone here I can become an OTR bore & have forced several friends to listen, who have then usually bought discs, some from Amazon, the only shop in the UK I have ever seen OTR cds in is Tower in Picadilly Circus which don't help the average mortal.
Perhaps I'm expecting a bit much of the record industry over here as they can't even get behind good British talent, my usual example of that being Nerina Pallot who has put out 2 excellent albums to almost total silence, while lesser talents are hyped to the skies... I've just spotted the flaw in my arguement, this has been happening for 50 years (or more) so it isn't going to stop any time soon.

Tim