I’m drowning in new music at the moment, 2008 is proving to be a rich vein of musical talent and that is no bad thing at all. My latest two purchases share the distinction of being very well crafted packages from established bands that showcases the amount of love and commitment that each band has made to their creations. These are not just products, they are, the M&S of products. Enough of the waffle already…
Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
First up is Elbow’s new album, their fourth to date, The Seldom Seen Kid. The great thing about Elbow is that you know that on the first listen, all the tracks will sound the same. It’s only as you play the album over and over, that the swarms of unrelated sounds gradually coalesce into recognizable melodies, vocals, etc. The lyrics are personal, meaningful and compact. Phrases are only repeated to build tension and release, and there isn’t much that you could actually call a chorus or a verse. This is more like poetry set to a sonic background. The package itself has a wonderful booklet containing the lyrics alongside artwork by rail enthusiast Oliver East. For the first time the band have done everything themselves, recording, mixing and producing. The album is mastered using a dynamic system that makes it sound too quiet, in fact you are advised to TurnMeUp to experience the fullness of the sound (I turn everything up to 11 anyway).
1. Starlings starts The Seldom Seen Kid with a clockwork, gentle wash of background noise, somewhat similar to Genesis’ Carpetcrawlers before being punctuated by, seemly random, bursts of short-lived orchestral chords. Great waves of sound surround Guy Garvey as he begins to sing “so yes I guess I’m asking you / to back a horse that’s good for glue / if nothing else”.
2. The Bones Of You is one of the emotional high-points of the album, with a soaring, infectious chorus “five years ago and three-thousand miles away”. We are borne along on waves of flamenco riffs. As the track fades, you can faintly make out the strains of Gershwin’s Summertime, and pedestrians can be heard walking passed the studio.
3. There are gorgeous touches of piano through Mirrorball that gradually transform into lush stringed sections.
4. If you’re after monstrous guitar riff and bass runs, check out the middle of Grounds for Divorce. Done with a kind of country-style, with plenty of big whoa, whoa, whoas, pedal steel guitars, and handclaps.
5. I found An Audience With The Pope slightly plodding but with an interesting, Chinese sounding intro.
6. If I had to pick perfection from perfection it would have to be Weather To Fly. Starting with high-pitched vocals over piano, it drifts into beautiful lyrics, touched with Sigur Ros styled horns, the melody looping round and around, with Peter Gabriel-esque vocals.
7. The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver (I kid you not) has drum-beats striding in huge boots all over it. In the middle is a quiet section before the whole thing builds up into a gigantic industrial rhythm.
8. Elbow are nothing if not different, but The Fix is different even for them. Co-written by and featuring on guitar and vocals the
9. Some Riot comes in with a Pink Floyd-ian start over Craig Potter’s keyboards. There are no drums at all. Guy Garvey is almost reciting the lyrics. Ethereal.
10. A passionate celebration comes with One day Like This. Lots of strings. A soaring chorus. A choir sings “so throw those curtains wide”. This is a happy clappy anthem in the style of Sgt Pepper. “Holy cow I love your eyes.”
11. The final track proper is Friend Of Ours, written, I suspect, in memory of “Bryan” who died two years ago and to whom the entire album is dedicated. Starting with acoustic guitar, the track gradually eases in a plaintiff piano and the lightest of brushing on the snares. Guy’s vocals are gentle, cracking with emotion. Later we get the string and brass and even electric guitar, but this is terribly subdued stuff. Heart-rending music.
12. And finally, the bonus track, We’re Away. A crooner’s song, I can imagine Guy on stage, in a suit, singing into a bulbous microphone like some high pitched Frank Sinatra.
Very highly recommended.
Feeder – Silent cry
Offering number two is Feeder’s sixth studio album, Silent Cry, gorgeously presented in a stylish black slip box with gold lettering, and artwork by award winning designer / typographer Nils Leonard. Coming two years after a “Best of” and three years after the last original material, fans have waiting a long time for this. I for one was not disappointed. The current line up has been together for six out of the band’s sixteen year life-time, and they have honed their own distinctive sound as well as pushing out fresh ideas on this album. Like Guy (of Elbow) Grant Nicholas has also kicked the big name producers into touch and taken over most of the recording for himself. Now, I’m not sure if it’s just me but on some of these tracks Grant’s vocals have a vibrato that puts me in mind of Martin Rossiter (singer with Gene back in the ‘90s), now that is one beautiful voice. If you’re a Feeder fan, you know what they sound like so here are just the icings on the cake. If you’re not a fan, shame on you, buy this album at once!
1. The album kicks off with their single, We Are The People, standard Feeder-fare in the style of Comfort In Sound, except a good bit heavier, as indeed the whole album is.
2. Itsumo kicks bottom with some serious Placebo inspired guitar and drumming work.
3. Miss You would, in the hands of any other band, be a hardcore wall of noise, but Feeder give it the clarity of a rock anthem with a catchy hectic riff,
4. Tracing Lines starts life as a Strokes’ track before unveiling an Oasis-like chorus, some serious indie-rock playing and a tidy guitar solo.
5. The title track, Silent Cry, was the first track on which I noticed the “Rossiter effect”. The song itself starts dark and emotive and develops into a rampant rock-beast by the second chorus.
6. Fires, I love this track. I can just imagine the crowd, lighters aloft singing along to the hypnotic, lines "she lights the fire, she lights the fire."
7. Heads Held High, starts like an acoustic Foo Fighters track, then explodes into glorious anthemic choruses.
8. A fuzzy ‘kazoo’ sound (keyboards I guess) kicks off 8:18, which alternates wildly: Quiet – Loud – Quiet – Loud - Middle 8 – Quiet – Loud.
9. On Who’s The Enemy I can hear that Rossiter vibrato again in Grant’s vocals. There is a fantastic, pompous Muse-like guitar/string section in the middle, "Running away, losing our way, we're fighting with ourselves but who's the enemy?"
10. Space, is just a little musical interlude before…
11. Into The Blue, takes us off to stylish, sexy, garage rock.
12. Guided By A Voice, features lots of ooh, ooh, oohs over white noise.
13. Sonorous, has that Muse thing going again, sort of Black Holes And Revelations. The sound is a bit Richard Ashcroft and a bit Rossiter. This track is another of the album highlights.
14. Yeah Yeah, the first bonus track, pretty standard Feeder stuff
15. Every Minute, This reminds me of a Kings Of Leon track, but I can’t quite put my finger on which one.
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