The Final Chow Down

This is an unusual review for two reasons.  Firstly, I've reviewed something incredibly buzzy which is getting yards of column inches, and secondly I think it's pretty damned great. So, here you go, yet another review telling you that this album is ace and the band are awesome...I bet it's the only one to refer to Pauline epistles, mind.

THE LAST DINNER PARTY – PRELUDE TO ECSTASY (Island) 

The Last Dinner Party have not been known, over the past year or so, for reticence. And now, to join their well-stocked wardrobe, bulging book of press cuttings and fast-filling trophy cabinet, they’ve made an album which sounds huge, with an ornate flamboyance decorating pop hooks from the top drawer (of the dressing up box). How many other debut albums open with a full-on overture? This one starts with a lavish orchestral confection, equal parts Gershwin and Shostakovich, with a little hint of golden-age Hollywood glamour. The album’s title is probably not a reference to Steely Dan’s 1973 classic Countdown To Ecstasy, but in some ways The Last Dinner Party resemble Becker and Fagen’s sophistirock outfit, adding curlicues and complexities to popular song forms – although on evidence to date it's clear the former would be more fun to hang out with in the studio. 

Sonically, this album is varied but invariably bold, gesturing camply towards a raft of classic pop styles. 'Burn Alive' is blousy panto goth, 'The Feminine Urge' is pitched on the sturdiest of Spector drum patterns, and 'Caesar On The TV Screen' is blasted epic glam a la Marc Almond and its late 60s soul-pop shuffle could have served Amy Winehouse well (not to mention some gratuitous but delicious timpani rolls). 'Sinner' starts with an insistent piano which Aurora Nishevsky should really perform with a stick-on Ron Mael ‘tache, so readily does it evoke vintage Sparks, but blossoms into a controlled fruitiness with the flavour of Roxy Music’s late – and under-rated – albums. There’s a light Cardigans slinkiness to 'My Lady of Mercy', which suddenly bursts into a Broadway stoner metal chorus – quite fittingly, as the Cardigans were always unabashed Sabbath heads.  

In a blizzard of reference points, the band always sound cohesive, not just a list of educated nods, the music impeccably arranged and with true depth to the writing. Take 'On Our Side', with a tinkling piano, slow stately chords, and a high, yearning vocal line that isn’t far from the Coldplay of 'Fix You', but there are definite differences. Firstly, Coldplay don’t tend to end an epic ballad with an 80-second ambient hug sounding like a windchime being sucked down a cloud tunnel, but also, whereas Chris Martin’s lyrics are almost pathologically generic, where every stone is accompanied by a bone, and anything cold is simultaneously old, this album is incredibly well read, and wears its learning as lightly as the lace frill around a flouncy cuff. Literary and classical allusions are tossed in without smug fanfare. When a song claims of the titular 'Beautiful Boy' that “he launches ships”, we think of Marlowe’s Helen of Troy; when 'The Feminine Urge' proclaims “I am dark red liver stretched out on a rock” the image of Prometheus is raised; and 'Caesar On A TV Screen'’s “When I was a child, I never felt like a child, I felt like an emperor” must have been copped from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthian Girl Bosses.  

The lyrics are consistently port-rich in allusion and emotional drama. Grab words from across the album and you’ll find lust, envy, pray, sin, altar, lust (again) - it’s basically The Best Catholic Guilt Album In The World...Ever! But there is great humour in the writing too, the offhand wit of the playfully bookish. When 'Burn Alive' assures us “there is candlewax melting in my veins” it’s a bohemian thirst trap for sixth-formers existing on a diet of snakebite and Brontë, whereas the wryly bleak yet urbane statement “I'm falling like the leaves in Leningrad” is part Kate Bush, part Mark Corrigan. 

Admittedly, 'Portrait Of A Dead Girl' might have been better served by a rawer recording more in line with the band’s celebrated live shows than the frilly pomp of this version, and one too many slightly blustery guitar solos might have been shoehorned in, but widescreen ambitions should never be criticised, and as Prelude To Ecstasy ends with 'Mirror', a Cheryl Cole torch song with Nick Cave intensity and Bond-theme bombast, you have to conclude that this album is big, and it is clever. 

 

Play This Tape 'Ere

Two reviews in a week at MusicOMH, because of a mix-up with dates.  Even we critical bellwethers have to abide by the calendar, like the drones do.

TAPIR! - THE PILGRIM, THEIR GOD AND THE KING OF MY DECREPIT MOUNTAIN (Heavenly) 

Billy Connolly once observed, “My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell` Overture without thinking of The Lone Ranger”. Listening to 'On A Grassy Knoll (We’ll Bow Together)', the second track on London sextet Tapir!’s debut album, they may be so fey and otherworldly that they are the first people in fifty years to use the phrase “grassy knoll” without thinking of JFK. The album is a collection of three EPs of bucolic, understated indie folk which tell a somewhat inscrutable epic story, and the first of these, 'Act 1 (The Pilgrim)', sets the tone, but lowers the expectations. It opens with some slightly cheesy Americana picking and whistling, before said non-assassination tune adds a hissing drum machine to some wistful folky arrangements to come off part charming, part infuriating – imagine a Canterbury scene band formed by Four Tet, Arab Strap, and Rod, Jane & Freddy. There’s an early Genesis mingling of whimsy and preciousness which doesn’t convince, and the third track, 'Swallow', is what The Simpsons’ Martin Prince and his “Shall I serenade you with my lute?” schtick might become if he spent twenty years hanging out in hipster record shops. Doggerel like “On my way home I caught a swallow/ With broken wings and a face that’s narrow” is half Bright Eyes, half Tom Bombadil, and all pretty naff. 

But thankfully, after these disappointing opening tracks the album improves immensely. Following 'The Nether (Face To Face)', a sweet little lullaby with a strange un-rap chant of “It’s cold, it’s dark/ Throw your bones in the ancient water” as if we’ve stepped into the cosiest little Dagon-worshipping cult in existence, Act 2 begins, delivering some delightful tunes. 'Broken Ark' has a tinny “pok pok” drum machine rhythm as heard on Damon Albarn’s more recent work, nice fuzzy guitar and simple keys. The vocal is quite lovely, more natural and less self-conscious than the cracking high register  of Act 1. A swooning cello gives a delicious Nick Drake flavour. No surprises that a motif is nicked from Erik Satie on 'Gymnopédie', but it’s appended to a sweet, elegant vocal melody, and sounds like a cousin of Mercury Rev’s 'Holes' held together by lolly sticks and Blu Tack. “Jesus had headlice” is an unusual line, though probably historically accurate, and heralds a move away from the fifth-form Arthuriana of the earlier lyrics, until we have the strange collage of slogans on 'My God' (all to a vocal line which is basically 'Young Hearts Run Free', inexplicably). 

'Untitled' is a country-flecked lope, a shy retiring version of The Band, bringing in female vocals to excellent effect, and nodding towards Radiohead with “For a second there I lost my head”. 'Mountain Song' ends the album, claiming “I built myself a mountain made of things I wished I own” like the exact opposite of Björk’s 'Hyperballad', before an extended outro which builds up a single phrase Morricone-style, with trumpet and massed voices. It’s a pleasing end to a rather uneven collection. People often say that the first episode of a sit-com is disappointing, and you should skip to the second, which is exactly the approach we propose for this album. 

 

 

 

 

 

Box for a Pen

There wasn't a January Nightshift, so it seems like forever since I saw this gig.  Luckily, I wrote down what I thought in case I forgot.

PUNCHING SWANS/ SINEWS/ EB, Divine Schism, Library, 7/12/23 

Tonight’s line-up has changed, in more than one way. Having lost two acts from the planned bill, local artist EB has stepped in, but also, EB has metamorphosed something rotten. Gone are the wide-eyed, smiling, pastel beats of a track like ‘La Criox’, and in their place we have excoriating digi-goth noise and lyrics like “Even in death I will not rest”. Between bursts of sonic violence a recording informs us that we’re part of some huge consumer feedback survey which morphs into an evil experiment as the vocal descends from urbane corporate avatar to glitchy screaming imp, which is perturbing, but not as much as EB within spittle-spraying distance of the crowd, howling “you made me hate that song I wrote” repeatedly, like an out of control playground chant over backing that sounds like the devil’s fax playing up. By the time we get to the simulated breakdown and song exploring strangulation revenge fantasies, our memories are gloriously scarred by the experience. 

In other company, Sinews might seem oppressive, but after that psychodrama their neo-hardcore rumble seems positively welcoming even as our ears are left equally battered: imagine a heartfelt hug from someone with an abrasively scratchy sweater and you might capture the balance between friendly warmth and spiky intensity. Fugazi are the reference point that seems most apposite, not because Sinews sound like them, necessarily, but because their music is heavily roiling but with a true sense of beauty within the wasteland, and big, bold lines proving that music doesn’t have to sound like ‘Chelsea Dagger’ to be called anthemic. Tonight they’re launching new single ‘Pony Cure’ which has the thick, scuffed texture of bitumen and old underlay, over which the vocals rasp deliciously, whereas another new tune is a blasted disco trudge, with an excellently rubbery, resilient bass holding it all together. 

Kent’s Punching Swans round off the night with the most approachable set, which is not to say that they aren’t also excellent. Their obscenely tight lopsided rock recalls Mclusky...or perhaps, as the humour is less mordant and more winkingly satirical, we mean Future Of The Left – a line like “A lifetime’s supply of oxygen” leaps from the razor-chopped riffs like the absurd punchline to a gag you didn’t catch, and math-snark sideswipes at third-rate populist culture like ‘Family Misfortunes’, hit the bullseye squarely. The approach is one of cynical weariness, but the playing is supercharged and passionate.