The Album Review Club - Week #194 (page 1303) - Ants From Up There - Black Country, New Road

[RobMCFC]

Are Salvation Army bands allowed to have a go at Klemzer or is that haram?

??

Was that a long way of saying ‘It’s shite’ ;-)

No it wasn't, it just wasn't to my taste.

 

[Coatigan]

It was really bugging me, that opening bit of Chaos Space Mountain, and not being able to put a finger on what colin steele bit it sounded like. Found it now, one of the segments of The Reccuring Dream. Either version really. Pretty much the same sequence.

Phew, can now untense!

Not claiming any tomfoolery or such, just pointing out the similarity.

 

[threespires]

??

Sorry, mindlessly amusing myself on a Friday afternoon by seeing if I could offend all three Abrahamic religions (including my own) in one sentence.

If you substitute the saxophones with clarinets (which they should have :-)) then at times BCNR sound a bit like the worlds strangest Klemzer band (from the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, you'll know the type of thing - think of the wedding bands playing Hava Nagila). Then in my head I saw your Salvation Army Lieutenant berating the band for playing none Christian songs and it was a short hop to him telling them it was haram.

Tbh - it was better in my head than on paper.

​

 

[Coatigan]

Sorry, mindlessly amusing myself on a Friday afternoon by seeing if I could offend all three Abrahamic religions (including my own) in one sentence.

If you substitute the saxophones with clarinets (which they should have :-)) then at times BCNR sound a bit like the worlds strangest Klemzer band (from the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, you'll know the type of thing - think of the wedding bands playing Hava Nagila). Then in my head I saw your Salvation Army Lieutenant berating the band for playing none Christian songs and it was a short hop to him telling them it was haram.

Tbh - it was better in my head than on paper.

​

The best jokes are the ones that need explaining!



As are albums too, ostensibly.

 

[Saddleworth2]

listening to it took me back to 1971 or 1972 when I bought an album featuring a bass player called Colin Hodgkinson. The NME were raving about him and his band Back Door and their first album which was labelled as jazz/rock/fusion. Black Country New Road reminds me a little of them in terms of very proficient musicians trying to do something different and push genre boundaries.

Whilst I loved the first Back Door album, at the moment I'm not loving BCNR. I think they are using their proficiency to illustrate how clever they are rather than concentrating on music quality. Take the track 'Snow Globes' which starts with a chord sequence that sounds like a child practicing their scales. That simple sequence is then simply embellished with layers of different instruments a bit like a very simple bolero. I will listen more but......

Here is a bit of Back Door for anyone that fancies a bit of a rest.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Squeeze - East Side Story

Squeeze are a interesting band throughout the years with so many chops and changes and 'big' names involved at certain points - it's little surprise that when you have the writing talents of Tilbrook and Chris Difford , co producer
Elvis Costello, Production of Dave Edmunds and likes of Paul Carrack for 'Tempted' that this was always going to be a well polished, produced and a solid Album.
'Tempted" and 'Labelled with Love' are excellent songs, 'In Quintessence', 'Piccadilly' and 'Is That Love' are also good tracks and have funny witty lyrics - some tracks I found pretty mediocre and washed over me.
The strength of the lyrics pushes this to a comfortable 7. Good pick.

7/10

 

[Coatigan]

listening to it took me back to 1971 or 1972 when I bought an album featuring a bass player called Colin Hodgkinson. The NME were raving about him and his band Back Door and their first album which was labelled as jazz/rock/fusion. Black Country New Road reminds me a little of them in terms of very proficient musicians trying to do something different and push genre boundaries.

Whilst I loved the first Back Door album, at the moment I'm not loving BCNR. I think they are using their proficiency to illustrate how clever they are rather than concentrating on music quality. Take the track 'Snow Globes' which starts with a chord sequence that sounds like a child practicing their scales. That simple sequence is then simply embellished with layers of different instruments a bit like a very simple bolero. I will listen more but......

Here is a bit of Back Door for anyone that fancies a bit of a rest.

You kinda hit the nail on the head for me there. These types of albums imho work best when they genuinely feel like they are the work of any one or more of these.
A tortured genius, unrestraining themselves. A group of talented guys just wanting to have fun, with no real ambition at stardom. Someone wanting to experiment or express themselves without any real aspirational purpose. Guys that totally missed their calling. Etc

But once they deviate from that and it starts to sound like an attempt at a professional record, it quickly risks sounding too either too clever or too pretentious, or overdone, and loses its charm. The trick to it is in the nonchalance.

That said this does have some excellent individual songs.

 

[Saddleworth2]

You kinda hit the nail on the head for me there. These types of albums imho work best when they genuinely feel like they are the work of any one or more of these.
A tortured genius, unrestraining themselves. A group of talented guys just wanting to have fun, with no real ambition at stardom. Someone wanting to experiment or express themselves without any real aspirational purpose. Guys that totally missed their calling. Etc

But once they deviate from that and it starts to sound like an attempt at a professional record, it quickly risks sounding too either too clever or too pretentious, or overdone, and loses its charm. The trick to it is in the nonchalance.

That said this does have some excellent individual songs.

which ones do you like?

 

[BlueHammer85]

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I’m going on a post-Thanksgiving jog in a bit to a little spot near my house called Dystopian Point, right on the San Francisco Bay, that looks out over San Quentin prison. This seems the ideal music to accompany me to such a place.

In case you’re wondering: roast turkey, cornbread/pasilla pepper stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and my wife’s homemade apple pie, plus a bottle of Carneros Pinot noir and a pre-meal Chardonnay. I am guessing about 5,000 calories :)

 

[Mancitydoogle]

Ants From Up There – Black Country, New Road

Picture the scene. Early evening, darkness has enfolded a little town, and whilst some shops have shut for the day, a few remain open allowing the townsfolk to nip in and buy their last few Christmas presents. It’s not too cold, but a light snow is falling, and as the camera pans to take in the war memorial, the post office and the Cat & Fiddle pub, its focus falls on the Salvation Army band gathered outside the boozer.

It's a good turnout, actually. In addition to the usual brass instruments, somebody has brought a violin, and hey, what’s that? Why it’s a saxophone! As the band tune up, people pass without paying too much attention. Old Rob scowls at the violinist and mutters something about the discordant nature of his output. But wait a minute, that was just the intro, they sound better now that they have settled into a groove. Well, as close to a groove as you can get when you’re a Salvation Army band.

By now, a small crowd has gathered, and there are a few smiles as the songs flow. “What a lovely scene!” Jane comments, squeezing the hand of her daughter who stands captivated by the whole affair. It is indeed the most perfect of picture postcard scenes. In fact, it’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see on the front of a Christmas card, or maybe in a festive film.

There’s a sudden bang. The door of the pub flies open, and out staggers a man clutching a half-empty beer bottle. Although he’s only young, the lines on his face tell the story of a difficult upbringing, or maybe it’s just the beer, or maybe both. His initial belch into the air, like a werewolf searching for a howl but being let down by the inner workings of his guts, is thankfully drowned out by the sound of the band. Things would have turned out better if this was the worst idea he'd had all day, but unfortunately, he has another idea, which probably seemed great in his beer-addled mind, but didn’t play out that way.

He muscles through the backline of players, causing an involuntary squeak from the trumpet, and he takes up a position in front of the band. Arms outstretched like some latter-day Christ the Redeemer (except that the true Christ in Rio de Janeiro doesn’t feature a beer bottle), he opens his mouth once more and starts singing. Well, I say singing, it’s more like some barbaric yawp. After a few incoherent verses, he starts mumbling, whining and throws in a bit of a self-pitying whimper now and then. Jane covers her daughter’s ears, a few more on-lookers express their disgust, and the band look disappointed that their performance has been interrupted by a loon who thinks he’s the next Thom Yorke. Most of the locals, realising that it’s just Jeff, not long ago a troubled teenager and now well on the way to being the town’s prize ne’er-do-well, shuffle along to the safety of their homes.

This is the image that arrived, fully formed, when I first listened to Ants From Up There by Black Country New Road. It’s not that there isn’t some skill on the part of the players, who certainly know their way around an instrument. It’s just that the voice does not work in this setting, and to be honest, the music is a bit stop-start in places; there’s no flow.

I think that there’s a very good chance that the issue here is that I don’t get modern music. How can people fall for an album that doesn’t feature ringing chords, middle 8s, a few guitar solos and a singer who stands up to the mic and gives it his all?

It's clearly me. Just look at what NME said about the album in their 5-star review:

This singular record will remain a stunning collection to be cherished for years to come.

AllMusic gave it 4/5 and said:

The band seems to play as a single multi-armed unit, and yet Wood's tortured voice is at the very center of their palette. Black Country made a strong impression on their debut, but things become much more interesting with Ants from Up There.

There’s some skill there, some musicality, some drama: “Chaos Space Marine” is a bit like Gilbert & Sullivan on acid, “Concorde” is mournful but at least contains a few plinky instruments, “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade” has some touches that make it relatively enjoyable. “Good Will Hunting” is not too bad, some instruments to pull me in and a bit of a pace change in the middle, before Isaac Wood goes all Cookie Monster vocals at the end.

I can see what @mrbelfry means about a run of “closers”. “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade” plus “Snow Globes” and “Basketball Shoes” all have that epic running time that is the hallmark of an album closer, but I don’t think that there’s enough going on in these songs to justify the length. Again, it’s down to my expectation and the need for the music to do more than it does in the allotted time. There are a few nice whacks of the drum after 10 minutes of torture on “Basketball Shoes”, but it’s too little too late.

The instruments sound good in places, but it doesn’t come together for me because of the singer and a lack of interest in what he’s singing about. “Darling, will you take my metal hand. It's cold” is a good line, and there’s a few more, but it’s all a little too whimsical for me. There’s also the elephant in the room: I don’t get my kicks from listening to Salvation Army bands. The album is too long for what it delivers, to me at least. 5/10.

Great review!