In some ways, Bang Goes the Knighthood is very different from Neil Hannon’s past work. Long time fans on pressing play for the first time will expect the stirrings of a string section or the familiar rat-a-tat of his signature drum beat – but there is no grand opening this time. Instead, Hannon’s 10th album begins with wistful melancholy; Down On The Street Below is about looking at your own life and feeling out of place. Of course it’s about his own minor celebrity status, albeit too elegantly written to seem like egocentric wallowing.
May 312010
After almost 30 years of writing and performing in some form or another, it wouldn’t be surprising if James settled into that “established act of yester-year” phase. Like The Cure or Depeche Mode, they could be recycling their old ideas in increasing less-essential albums, mopped up by the faithful, whilst live they perform greatest hit sets to casual fans, young and old.
Their reformation album Hey Ma seemed to lay the ground work for this phase. Despite its post 9/11 protesting, it was very much a glossy business-as-usual piece of work that could’ve sat between 91’s Gold Mother and 92’s Seven, without being as memorable as either.
But James have never been a band who’ve been able to stay static for long. Although the James sound is always noticeable, they’ve always shown a determination to try new things and take their music into new directions. The Night Before thankfully keeps up this tradition, if a little more modestly than before. Album opener It’s Hot includes a Peter Hook inspired bassline that’s more exciting than almost the whole of Hey Ma.
The Night Before is one of twin mini albums; the other, The Morning After, will follow towards the end of the year. It seems really to be logical extension of the final pre-break up album Pleased To Meet You, boasting the same deep sound, but made lighter by some of the gloss left over from Hey Ma.
It’s a solid collection; not one of James’ best, but far from one of their worst. It’s the bookends that make the album, aside from Hot, the bizarre Dr Hellier is the song that resonates the most. A strange sci-fi concoction which compares the war on terrorism to a Fantastic Voyage-esque quest to heal the body, probably suggesting that the solution is worse than the problem.
Maybe it’s the glossy production that lets it down. For a band with such roots in improvisation and anarchic live performances, the sheen feels disappointing. The songs with more edge are by far the most immediate sounding, without necessarily being the catchiest. Still, it’s a strong step forward; always a band of swings and slides, it feels that James still have some creative life in them after all. Confirmation will hopefully come later in the year.
Rating: 
Apr 062010
This debut LP from the Dum Dum Girls is a tease. You see, in name, in style, in hype they’re retreading ground already gleefully stamped all over by the wonderful Vivian Girls. Even three tracks into I Will Be, there’s little to distinguish them from their Brooklyn counterparts. It’s all DIY-surf-echoed gubbins; it’s good though – opener It Only Takes One Night shakes, clatters and rolls along, recalling the fantastic Raveonettes tune Attack Of The Ghost Riders.
Then, it happens. You see, they’ve been hiding a stupendous trick up their sleeve. In Jail La La they possess perhaps the greatest single we’ve yet seen from this genre rediscovery. It starts simply enough, a night out gone wrong, admittedly, some of the best use of la-la-las since Kylie. But the chorus, oh boy the chorus. It’s like getting showered in sunshine. The harmonies take you back to whatever era you count as classic girl group, with the aching refrain “someone tell my baby / or else he won’t know I need saving” repeating until fade.
Thankfully, the rest of I Will Be stands up to inspection. The second half of the album in particular rattles by in what seems like no time at all, even if by the end it is all getting a little derivative. Closer Baby Don’t Go brings things to a hal in nice style though, slower with the sound of lapping waves behind another gorgeous harmony. Little guitar runs and wistfully playful lyrics throughout help make this a cohesive whole – rather than ten tracks of come-on and one of full blown aural pleasure.
Rating:
Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La (mp3)
*PS – get this one on wax, it comes as a lovely red/black spatter vinyl. Yum.
May 122009
Maxïmo Park: Quicken The Heart
Released 11th May 2009
Warp
I liked Maxïmo Park. I thought the debut album was a pretty damn good record, certainly deserving of being on the hallowed Warp label. Second album was a little bit off colour, but packing enough punchy tracks to bear out repeated listens. Shame then that Quicken The Heart continues that downward trend – this time lacking any songs of flair or interest. The opening four or so tracks pass by without hook or standout. Sadly the band seems to have taken their always-present “big sound” leanings and replicated it over the course of an album. Gone are the stop-start moments that made tracks like Apply Some Pressure so exhilirating; replaced with leaden words and single paced tunes. There’s only a couple of tracks that lifted the monotony, the glittering Calm and darkly raw Roller Disco Dreaming. At times it comes across as lightweight as an 80s synthpop album, only lacking the immediacy and subtlety; all flash no bang. Despite the immediacy there is no pop hook; for all the stadium sound, there’s no shout-along chorus. This places the album in no-man’s land, passing the listener by and leaving nothing behind.
Rating:
Calm (mp3)
The Kids Are Sick Again (Video)
Photo: Stuart Leech
Mercury Rev
Snowflake Midnight
V2
Rating:
Mercury Rev have traced a strange trajectory in the decade following their first masterpiece, Deserter’s Songs. 2001′s All Is Dream was excellent, a fragile collection of songs draped in beautiful arrangements. Four years in the making, its follow-up The Secret Migration was a relative failure. That fragility had turned to lead, thick instrumentation drowning any notion of tune or subtlety.
Snowflake Midnight is every bit the return to the success of 1998, albeit in a totally different form. Gone is the echo-ing Americana, and to the fore comes electronic soundscaping; loops and glitches. The change in sound is probably tied to the change in writing process, faced with creative block they turned to random note generators and online effects libraries. The result is an inorganic but beautifully natural record.
The marriage between Donahue’s trademark vocals and the new guitar-free Rev is a happy one, the songs float past, seeming both to evolve and endlessly repeat. There’s plenty of range here too, with the mood changing across and within tracks. Album highlight, People Are So Unpredictable is the best example. The track warps over its near seven-minute length from a delicate ‘curious flower’ to a devastating run of drums, reminiscent of M83‘s cinematics, and then back again to a looping piano.
The band still inhabit the same universe as previously, this is no Rev-olution. Tracks like the superb Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower and opener Snowflake In A Hot World are Mercury Rev alright, just with a brilliant electric sheen. Perhaps the band see this as a return to their early experimental work. If so, then they have done a stunning job of melding experiment to melody.
By registering on the Mercury Rev website, you can get an instrumental ‘second disc’ of Snowflake Midnight, called Strange Attractor. The band are quoted as saying that tracks swapped places between the two albums, so the quality should be just as high. It’s in my download queue as I type…
