There's no apparent rhyme or reason as to why Ruarri Joseph decided to dispense with his previous name and rename his band. However, with his new moniker, William the Conqueror are looking down the highways and byways of country-folk, rock and blues, allied to a slacker-grunge bearing, and looking to rough things up a little, and get down and dirty, as it were. With the help of drummer Harry Harding and bassist Naomi Holmes, Proud Disturber of the Peace is a journey to a rawer, more organic sound that is easy and simplistic on the surface, but is deceptively textured and nuanced throughout.

Handed some decent money by Atlantic Records in the last gasp days of the pre-internet era, it unsurprisingly didn't work out for either Joseph or Atlantic, despite his debut album Tales of Grime and Grit being a powerful blast of slacker-roots-rock. Subsequent releases saw him being lumped into a loose folk-roots category, veering into hints of country by the time he came out with Brother, his fourth album, and one largely built around a love letter to a recently deceased close friend.

"With William the Conqueror I wanted to let the music do the talking, so I deliberately wrote about things so personal and idiosyncratic that I wouldn’t be able to talk about them on stage without giving hours of back story. So I picked off some ideas I had kicking around about things that happened in my youth that I’d not processed and that’s where it clicked and made sense to marry the concept of channeling my younger self musically with whatever the fuck strange things were going on at the time." So says Joseph, who furthermore wanted to reach back to his punkier and rockier days in coming up with a new sound and direction. And so, Proud Disturber of the Peace is largely about those salad days when he was still based in New Zealand. Indeed, the accompanying video to the track 'Tend to the Thorns' features Joseph as a youg boy, all shot on 8mm film stock. Heavy and rhythmic in sound, it's topped off by his typically low-key, yet soulful, voice that imparts both melancholy and spiritual awakening in equal measure. Similarly, 'In My Dreams' is a driving, groove-based opener for the album, that talks about destiny, disappointment and defiance, while the more restless 'Did You Wrong' has a blues undercurrent, as does the big guitar sound of the title track. The Neil Young-esque 'Cold Ontario' imparts a similarly languid rhythmic groove, aided by eerie female backing vocals, at one point the whole sound is filtered through the ghost of an ancient recording device.

Elsewhere, there are more contemplative, poetic moments such as the beautifully realised closing track 'Manawatu' ("Hand in my pocket, mind on the run / If someone could stop it, then stop it someone") which builds from rhythmic and repetitive acoustic guitar and short bursts of harmonica, before the whole band gradually joins in, including some brass, a sense of optimism penetrating the initial lamentfulness. And the slow and gentle 'Pedestals' sees Joseph more in the present, with a song aimed at his children, and imploring them not to make the same mistakes he made with respect to looking up to his parents too much: "Don't build me up, you can't knock me down".

Proud Disturber of the Peace was recorded in Joseph's garage (hence the album title), with the intention of keeping things loose, single takes a priority, and avoiding overdubs for the most part. It is the album Joseph has been capable of making ever since that startling debut album of 2007. This time, without the shackles of a big contract and overbearing execs leaning on you, he's laid it all down in a supremely naturalistic way, that compliments his easy-going slacker demeanour.

Jeff Hemmings

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