Trwbador: ‘Trwbador’

My favourite description of Trwbador’s music is still the one offered by Radio Wales’ Adam Walton about their first EP: “There’s a wide-eared wonder and playfulness to their sound as if they were deserted at birth and raised by the instruments in the school music cupboard.”  Their early songs were gorgeous but fragile, a delicate balance of Owain’s guitar and Angharad’s voice with subtle beats underneath, feeling like they needed cosseting from the big bad world – rather like new-born giraffes, matchstick legs sticking  out at unusual angles. As their career progressed, the word ‘quirky’ was definitely called for: the mixture of Welsh and English, the juxtaposition of lovely pop/folk melodies and throwaway electronic experiments, the occasional lapses into giggly silliness (Google It) and unusual cover versions, generally featuring glockenspiel (Army Dreamers and Only Trust Your Heart), plus a guest spot on Cornershop’s 2012 Christmas single, Every Year So Different.

Now at last their debut album is here, and they’re all grown up…

Album review: The Misers A Weight Off The Mind (Is Still A Load On The Shoulders)

Misers live in stately homes – yes, that would be right

They’ve kept people waiting a bit for the second album…the Misers’ first, Amplified Life Stories, as choice a slice of Americana pie as ever came out of the West Midlands, was released in 2009 but now, with A Weight Off The Mind (Is Still A Load On The Shoulders), they’re broadening out a bit, steppin’ out and strutting their stuff. A strong American rock and alt.country influence is still detectable however (the Who-like introduction to Old Town notwithstanding) and in fact the opening, title track seems to be inviting the participation of Emmylou Harris. But it’s to songwriter and frontman Neil Ivison’s great credit that he hasn’t thought it necessary to affect an American accent for these songs. His singing, alway strong, is at its most effective in the slower numbers – he gives an impressive vocal performance on Back In Your Arms and really stretches himself out for the album closer Second Time. And the band now have a ready-made anthem in My Life Story complete with rock star guitar solo. Which will come in handy, no doubt, in the bigger venues they should be playing before too long.

One reason for the late appearance of the second album is that this four-piece band lost two of its members and gained two replacements in the interim – and also radically changed their approach to recording, from warts-and-all analogue to the kind you do with computers. It seems to have worked though. With new band members Paul Connup (guitar) and Sid Griffin (bass) alongside – or more probably in front of – original drummer Shane Dixon, their sound is crisp, the arrangements are often subtle; and I especially like the complementary acoustic guitar and cello on The Shrine and the mariachi-mandolin style of I Got A Woman – it’s here that the aforementioned Ms Harris gets a proper reference, along with Gram and Johnny’n’June. (And is there a more subtle homage to Gillian Welch’s I Dream A Highway at this point?)

If there is a fault with the album, it’s perhaps the aspect of ‘being all things to all people’ and the lack of a unified style. But that’s hardly a criticism of a band that’s currently refining its approaches and exploiting its crossover appeal. I’ll come clean and say I was an instant fan of the first album and found this one harder to get into; which is probably a sign that it’ll stay with me for longer.

So, Misers, what direction for a third album, if we may look so far ahead? Here’s a thought: Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers all had their breakthrough third albums produced by Jimmy Iovine. Wonder whether Jimmy’s busy these days?

Here are the Misers in rehearsal, September 2012

And here’s a taste of the new album – Fine Line and Back In Your Arms. Release date is November 5. Hmm, we’ve got fireworks here in MK already.

New Favourite Band: Brockdorff Klang Labor

A re-working of classic New Wave electro-pop, in German, with songs citing Guy Debord and Christa Wolf? A secret laboratory in Leipzig has been busy creating a new group to my exact specifications, and I’ve only just discovered this: welcome to Brockdorff Klang Labor.

As many of you know, my formative years were the early 1980s, the moment when the futuristic soundscapes of early electronica, the radical conscience and situationist sloganeering of punk and post-punk and the sheer joy of disco collided to produce some of the greatest pop records ever. The last couple of years have thus been deeply annoying, as the media have regularly heralded a return to those glory years, only for the end result to be Little Boots or Florence and the Bloody Machine.

The Scottish Enlightenment

Well I suppose it serves me right for volunteering my services to Blimpy …

I was not alone in being surprised and delighted to learn that The ‘Spill is now offered music to review, but being asked (for once) to put my money mouth where my mouth is gave me a bit of a moment, I can tell you. I hope I carry out my duty to the required standard!

St. Thomas is the new album from The Scottish Enlightenment, a four-piece from Fife. I (unsurprisingly) had never heard of them, but our curator-in-chief Dropped me this bunch of songs with the open-ended invitation of “I remember that you’re an Aereogramme & similar fan … if you want to give [TSE] a ‘Spilling …”

OK, so I was intrigued enough to take the bait, and played the album through a couple of times. Then again the next day. Then burnt it to CD knowing I had five hours to come in the car the following day (it stayed on the whole time). Then on my return home on Thursday night, I even played it again DURING the RR MFF. So before you go any further I reckon you can see I was either (a) taking my responsibilities as reviewer far too seriously, or (b) I like it a lot.

The correct answer is definitely (b). So how do I put that into words well enough to convince some more of you to seek it out? Well, adding a link to at least one song would help, but as I keep saying, that part of posting on WordPress continues to frustrate me. Maybe Blimpy will add something in as an Edit after I post this (done! Blimpy).

As I’m no proper journalist, maybe I can be forgiven the lazy reviewer’s sin of description by comparison? Blimpy hooked me with a mention of Aereogramme (think Mogwai-lite with designs on Snow Patrol or Coldplay crossover success); my email to him, after first listens, promising to post this review said simply “iLiKETRAiNS play Dakota Suite“. During my motorway slog to and back from Birmingham, the names Sigur Rós, Nick Cave, even Stuart Staples also wandered across my thoughts. Pigeonholes suggested themselves: rock, post-rock, slowcore, indie, folk, shoegaze, pastoral … Hang on, PASTORAL? Yeah, I’ll come back to that in a minute. But again and again and again, one word returned to my brain: stately. This album is dignified, serious guitar-based music in which to lose yourself for fifty minutes or so.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not pompous, it’s not unapproachable, and it certainly isn’t brash or arrogant. It’s more like an aural equivalent of Robert Duvall’s Lt.Col. Kilgore in the beach-trashing scene of Apocalypse Now – calm, commanding and demanding respect whilst chaos and destruction abound. That there might just be a hint of madness behind the façade just adds to the mystique, in my opinion. For instance, is the decision to open your first album in around five years with a simple 2min+ instrumental that of a sane band? It’s very GIAA/Mogwai, but hardly attention-grabbing. But The Scottish Enlightenment know what they’re doing, as Gal Gal‘s repetitive guitar motif twists neatly into the one-string riff of Earth Angel – With Sticks In Crypt, and the tone and pace are set. EA-WSIC is one of two songs that have forced others off my Walkman to make room for them, and would be my first choice to insert into the review as an mp3.
Next track Little Sleep gets the DsD thumbs up for two reasons, (i) the understated way the rat-a-tat-tat drum riff doesn’t overwhelm the song, but adds to it, and particularly (ii) the line “All we need’s a little sleep and we’ll be fine”, which I think is going to be my new motto! This is the song that gave me the iLiKETRAiNS comparison. Taxidermy Of Love, on the other hand, is musically as ethereal as anything Sigur Rós produce (is that a harp I hear?), but has to content itself with merely looking at the stars instead of being up there with them because singer David Moyes is no Jónsi Birgisson.
The next two songs, Pascal (listen to the fingers sliding up&down guitar strings – is that a good thing or a bad thing? I never know.) and Necromancer continue the theme, though the latter raises the volume and darkens the mood nicely.
Remember I said both Nick Cave and ‘pastoral’ up above? The First Will Be Last is partly responsible for both of those. If we can add a link to it – hint, hint, Blimpy – I highly recommend a listen to the lyrics, though in truth the music and vocal tone here try to undermine my earlier “stately” argument by feeling almost urgent in pace.
List Right returns us to Aereogramme territory. The Soft Place chucks some glockenspiel, trumpet and falsetto backing vocals into the mix, kinda reminding me of HUGE DsD faves, Guillemots’ Redwings & Songs Of Green Pheasant’s Alex Drifting Alone.
Then we have My Bible Is, which is indeed “filled with love and beauty”, forming a suitable climax to an album I’m really glad I was sent. But in a last little perverse and enigmatic twist, it isn’t the last track on the album. Cogito is fifty seconds of piano noodling, heavy on the echo effect. Not one that anyone is going to target their 79p at on iTunes, but does it leave you, er, pondering? Or is it a smartarse reference too far? I’ll plead the Fifth and leave it to others to decide!

So that’s a big thumbs-up from me. Call it post-rock, call it shoegaze, call it whatever you like – iTunes calls it “Ecclesiastical Rock”, ffs; all I ask is that someone tells me I’ve done enough to make at least one more person want to buy it.

The above player has Necromancer, The First Will Be The Last, Little Sleep.

Available from Armellodie Records for £7 on CD, less on MP3.

Review: Mostly Autumn – Glass Shadows

On Tuesday morning the pre-ordered edition of Mostly Autumn’s seventh studio album “Glass Shadows”, which I’d ordered at the beginning of the year, arrived on my doormat.

Since I recommend something by them in RR just about every week, you should have guess by now that I’m a huge fan of this York-based act. They’ve actually been going for more than a decade, completely under the radar of the mainstream media. Their sound is unashamedly 70s, mixing elements of prog-rock, folk-rock, and classic AOR to produce a rich sound that’s far more than the sum of it’s parts. You can hear influences of Pink Floyd, Fairport Covention, Deep Purple and Fleetwood Mac, but they manage to transcend any simple pastiche. While I can never really second-guess other people’s likes and dislikes, Gordonimmel and DarceysDad ought to love them.

The band lineup has changed over the years, but the constant factor and creative heart are Bryan Josh on vocals and guitar, and Heather Findlay on lead vocals. Bryan is a fantastic lead guitarist in the mould of Dave Gilmour and Steve Rothery, and his technically limited but heartfelt vocals are balanced by Heather’s wonderful voice, a perfect mix of precision and emotion that somehow manages to sound both sensual and pure at the same time.

Heather Findlay at Gloucester Guildhall, 24 April

Like many bands outside the fashionable mainstream, they finance their albums through pre-orders from fans, and this is the third one of theirs I’ve ordered this way. I’m probably too much of a fan of this band to be able to write anything approaching an objective review of anything by this band. When I’ve seen them live eighteen times (so far), have met the band several times, and am on first name terms with some of them, I think I’m a little too close to be able to view their music dispassionately. But I’m going to try anyway.

This was an eagerly-anticipated release. The previous album, the good-but-flawed “Heart Full of Sky”, though the band’s biggest seller to date, rather divided the fanbase. While it included at least a couple of absolute classic songs, I felt there were too many places where half-formed ideas weren’t properly developed. It was as if the band had overreached themselves trying to produce a double album in a limited timescale, and the end result fell frustratingly short of the better album it could have been.

This time around, they haven’t made the same mistake. The sound, engineered and mastered by John Spence, is very different from the overambitious wall-of-sound of it’s predecessor. It’s a more stripped down, organic sound, a little closer to how the band sound live. Not quite perfect; I’d like to have heard the backing vocals of Olivia Sparnenn and Anne Marie Helder a little more prominent in the mix. With Iain Jennings and Liam Davidson only rejoining the band for the start of the tour, and Chris Johnson having left before the start of recording, it’s left to Bryan Josh to plays almost all the keyboards as well as all the guitars. While there are probably a few places where Iain Jennings could have added some of his magic touches, Bryan’s studio keyboard playing seems to have improved from the rather simplistic playing on much of HFoS. Like the last couple of albums there’s not much flute, now played by Anne Marie Helder rather than the recently departed Angie Gordon.

With a running time of just 55 minutes, they’ve concentrated on quality rather than quantity, and spent the necessary time honing the arrangements. There is nothing half-formed on this disk, and no filler either. Musically the band continues to move forward; they’ve refused to play safe by creating a pastiche of their past. Like many great bands of the past they’ve explored some new musical areas, but still kept enough elements of the past sound to keep the majority of existing fans happy.

It’s also a stronger than usual album lyrically, gone are some of the awkward and clunky lyrics that have marred previous releases. They’re not singing about Hobbits any more now; they’ve got too much from their real life experiences of the last couple of years. It’s a true life story of heartbreak, joy, tragedy and hope.

I don’t normally do song-by-song reviews, but I’ll make an exception here.

Fireside
The album opens with a strongly riff-driven hard rocker. With the subdued opening it starts off sounding like Fleetwood Mac, then turns into Led Zeppelin when the guitars come in at full strength on the second verse. Turn the volume up all the way up to eleven for this one, and rock out!

Second Hand
A dreamy atmospheric piece with Bryan singing lead that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on one of their early albums. This is one of those songs that doesn’t make an immediate impact, but creeps up on you after a couple of plays and gets stuck in your head. There are a few lyrical and musical similarities to a slowed-down version of ‘Pocket Watch’, but this is several orders of magnitude better.

Flowers for Guns
This one has ‘potential single’ written all over it, an upbeat pop song you can actually dance to. Heather’s lyrics are actually about the traumatic events of the middle of last year. Although they haven’t done anything quite like this before, somehow it still sounds like a Mostly Autumn song. There’s a great flute solo from Anne-Marie Helder in the middle.

Unoriginal Sin
This song is essentially Heather’s response to Fish’s “13th Star”. The melody and vocal delivery remind me a lot of parts of Odin Dragonfly’s “Offerings”, only an awful lot angrier. The dark brooding arrangement featuring some heavy guitar at the end, and I have to wonder if Bryan channelling Fish’s guitarist rank Usher is deliberate.

Paper Angels
Dedicated to backing singer Livvy Sparnenn, who’s going through very difficult times at the moment. One of the most emotionally intense songs on the album, and knowing exactly what Heather’s lyrics are about, this one hit me hard. Musically this could easily be a Breathing Space song, the first part a sparse piano and vocal arrangement, before Bryan launches into one of his best solos on the album.

Tearing at the Faerytale
This was the standout of the new songs they played live when I saw the in Gloucester, a big soaring guitar-driven epic that almost rivals the traditional live encore ‘Heroes Never Die’ in scope. It’s dedicated to Livvy’s dad Howard, a truly great guy I’ve had the privilege of meeting several times.

Above the Blue
In complete contrast, this song is beautiful shimmering ballad. The sparse arrangement, just piano and a subtle string arrangement from Troy Donockley gives Heather’s voice the space to shine. I find it reminiscent of ‘Broken’ from “Heart Full of Sky”, only far better.

Glass Shadows
Clocking in at more than eleven minutes in length, the title track is the only song on the album for with the label ‘prog’ is really appropriate. From the hauntingly atmospheric intro through to the intense swirling instrumental section towards the end, it’s a impressive well-structured piece, the only place where the Floydian influences they’ve worn on their sleeve on past albums come to the fore.

Until the Story Ends
A semi-acoustic love song about not one but two couples (I won’t say who, but Richard Nagy’s illustration on the lyric booklet is a big giveaway). The lyrics are perhaps a little bit soppy, but by this stage I think they’ve earned the right to a bit of soppy.

A Different Sky
This is the only song on the entire album that just doesn’t work for me. It’s not that it’s a bad song in itself, but this summery sixties-style pop number just sounds out of place on the album. The previous song makes such a musically and emotionally satisfying album closer that this song somehow diminishes it. I’ve suggested on the band’s web forum that they leave this song off the June retail edition of the album, and release it on it’s own as a single instead.

Aside from that one quibble about the final track, this is a very good album indeed. It might not quite be the career-defining masterpiece some people close to the band had been hyping it up to be, but it comes very close. The limited edition, complete with “making of” DVD is available from the band’s website. The normal retail edition will be released in June.