Following on from a successful run supporting Kezia Gill on her UK tour, and with some highly successful slots at this years C2C Festival - it is time for a new single from Brian Collins. To get the full effect of the single a little horticultural knowledge would not go amiss so without going all "Gardeners World" on you - Jimson Weed” or Devil's Snare, is a plant in the Nightshade family. It grows wild and is found as a blossoming flower amid barren wastelands. It has been used in traditional medicine and is also a powerful hallucinogen that is used spiritually for the intense visions it produces. However, these properties are fatally toxic in only slightly higher amounts.
So with your new found knowledge of Datura stramonium - Let us return to the music.
Opening to jangly guitars, keyboards and all star percussion provided by Daniel De Los Reyes of the Zac Brown Band, Brian introduces us to someone who might not be all that they appear to be at first sight. It's a subtlety that flows into the cover design with the shadow cast on the wall a grotesque version of the flower sprouting through the concrete.
"In a waste land where nothing good can grow - I guess I should have known it when I saw her
A flower, as pretty as a rose - I never thought I'd know the Devil's Daughter and it grew harder to say no"
Brian skillfully weaves the flora terminology into the fabric of the song,so seamlessly that you might not even notice it is there, the opening words of the next line for instance are not randomly there,
"In the shade of night under a summer sky I played right into her hands
When she drew me in, I knew right then, that I never had a chance
What she called love, poisoned me like Jimson Weed"
The sporadic lead guitar flourishes throughout add that little extra bit of class to the whole track, while the percussion really drives things forward at a relentless pace - making this a classic little country song.
Most of us have at some point become intoxicated by the allure of someone, our own little "Jimson Weed's where we can look back fondly at the good times and perhaps try to forget the bad.
"Her lies, were beautiful and sweet but turned bitter with the changing of the seasons"
With some winter dates hopefully to come - the UK has not yet seen Brian Collins fully in bloom with a complete band behind him - if it was to sound anything like this - we'll be in for a treat.