Communion

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Communion
released 3 March 2009 on Yep Roc

Back in 2002, The Soundtrack of Our Lives were very nearly the “next big thing.” They were hotly tipped by the music press, endorsed by Noel Gallagher (they toured the USA with Oasis) and were Grammy-nominated for their album, Behind the Music. Unfortunately for them, the breakthrough alternative acts from that year were either grunge revivalists (The Vines), arty and with self-conscious cool to spare (The Strokes) or served up their rock drenched in blues (The White Stripes, Kings of Leon). The Soundtrack of Our Lives joined that all-too-long list of bands who didn‘t convert media attention and hype into popularity and sales.

They’ve been plugging away ever since though, and after abandoning their Origin Vol. 2 project (the proposed follow-up to 2004’s Origin Vol. 1), they return with Communion; their first double-album, consisting of 24 tracks which span two CDs. The opening few bars of the first track are oddly reminiscent of Sigur Rós, but that proves to be a red herring and it becomes apparent that TSOOL have spent the last four of five years doing their homework and learning their trade.

The first disc recalls many of the best-loved and biggest-selling rock artists of the last fifty years. Shades of The Who, Oasis, Jane’s Addiction and Primal Scream pervade every track, yet it rarely sounds derivative, as it has enough imagination and invention to be greater than the sum of its parts. In a similar way to The Hold Steady, TSOOL manage to create something which draws on a myriad of ideas whilst maintaining its own unique and unmistakeable identity.

Opening track, Babel On, is about as clear a statement of intent with which an album can begin; a six and a half minute towering rock behemoth, where booming drums collide with a crunching wall of guitars. It demands your attention and it demands to be played loud. The theme continues with Universal Stalker, before a couple of insubstantial, forgettable tracks creep in which veer dangerously close to ‘landfill indie’ territory. However, Ra 88 soon picks up the pace again, with drummer Fredrik Sandsten maintaining skill and precision whilst displaying the energy of a hyperactive child denied adequate Ritalin.

Lead single, Thrill Me, deserves to be all over the radio, combining as it does the beat of the Primal Scream classic, Rocks, with Rolling Stones guitars and an irresistible chorus. Radiohead this ain’t. Experimentalism, ambient, minimalism and dubstep all have their place, but this is good, old-fashioned, big, dumb rock which wears an enormous smile on its face and is all the better for it.

As far as the rest of the disc goes, Second Life Replay is a Mediaeval ballad that gradually builds and builds before somehow morphing into an Iron Maiden-style coda. Fly is a rancid version of the Nick Drake song of the same name, which manages to simultaneously sound like it was arranged with the aim of being commissioned for the Guitar Hero series and like it was recorded in 1988. Further tracks are slightly devoid of ideas, and the unique identity which was a positive to begin with, becomes more of a blessing than a curse as time progresses, as songs start to become more indistinguishable.

If the first disc is the in-your-face, good-time party album, then the latter disc is the introspective and maudlin younger brother, jealous at the attention-seeking of its sibling. All twelve tracks are tainted with disappointment, and it’s tricky to get enthused about them when faced with the memory of the previous dozen.

It’s not all bad news though; first track Everything Beautiful Must Die is The Jesus and Mary Chain if they’d discovered a few more instruments, even if the title inadvertently sums up disc two‘s attitude. Every track has redeeming features, but an over-reliance on drone and reverb leaves the listener fairly underwhelmed and nursing a nagging feeling of disappointment.

The longer Communion goes on, the more the ideas dry up. Songs such as Lost Prophets in Vain and Reconnecting the Dots groan under the weight of lazy lyrics, as if Ebbot Lundberg has been reading the book of songwriting clichés. Closing track, The Passover, hints at the excitement of the first disc and is a worthy climax, but in reality it’s too little too late. The chances are that you’ll have given up before then as sadly, listening to the 90-odd minutes of Communion turns out to be more of a test of endurance than an enjoyable experience.

Actually, Communion is a very good album; it’s just a shame it’s been spread out over the space of two albums. It could even be a good idea for the future; a kind of musical mix-and-match, where bands send their fans 25 tracks, and the ones that make up the album are selected by committee.

A little bit more rigorous quality control, and TSOOL could have had something with the potential to finally break them into the mainstream. They’ve recently won Best Group at the Swedish equivalent of The Grammies, so this album won’t be their last, but only time will tell how they’ll fare in comparison with the rest of the Class of 2002. For now; B minus, must try harder.

Colonia

A Camp - Colonia
released 2 February 2009 on Reveal Records

It’s fair to say that 2008 was a pretty good year for side-projects. As well as Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett taking their opera, Monkey: Journey to the West, to the O2 arena for a critically-acclaimed run, Robert Plant, Gruff Rhys and Alex Turner all received Mercury nominations for their extra-curricular activities. So, onwards to 2009, and already there’s a new album from the offshoot of an established band.

A Camp were born of a Cardigans hiatus in 2001 following the release of their 3-million selling Gran Turismo album, when frontwoman Nina Persson teamed up with Mark Linkous of Sparklehouse to pen their eponymous début. Fast-forward to now, and after collaboration success with Manic Street Preachers, Persson this time teams up with husband and ex-Shudder to Think guitarist Nathan Larson for Colonia. Factor in contributions from Guided by Voices drummer Kevin March, Joan As Policewoman and ex-Smashing Pumpkin James Iha and you’ve got something you’ll be intrigued to give a spin before you can say “supergroup.”

It all starts promisingly enough with energetic waltz The Crowning preceding lead single and stand-out track, Stronger than Jesus. Both are fantastic, old-fashioned pop songs, with strong melodies complimented by well thought-out instrumentation. A smattering of brass on Stronger than Jesus weaves and bobs between Persson’s vocals, giving the song a strong anthemic feel.

Unfortunately, it’s consistently downhill for the next quarter of an hour and, were it not for the saving grace of Chinatown, for the rest of the album in general. The whole recording has a very 21st Century sound, meaning that not one space has been left empty and allowed to breathe. The era of ProTools has led to music being able to be seen visually as a diagram and often for producers the temptation to ‘fill in’ the empty gaps is too irresistable, leading to a thick, sludgy sounding record, where the finished product is much less than the sum of its parts. This ‘kitchen sink’ approach to mixing is fully in evidence throughout Colonia, which makes it a chore to listen to. Actually, that’s not true, it’s perfect for listening to on the London Underground, where the noise of the train will blend in seamlessly with the 101 instruments already on show.

That’s a real shame as The Cardigans are a much-underrated band and Persson has the capacity to be a fantastic frontwoman. The sheer weight of production, however, means that Persson has to really strain to make herself heard above the fug of noise and her vocals are unable to display the alluring insouciance that made Lovefool such a success.

Lyrically, Colonia flits between the wryly observed sublime (“Young drunken girls in a hideous dance/Sing a heartfelt lament to the death of romance”) to the embarrassingly gauche and ridiculous (“Raindrops in a reservoir and minutes in a jar/That is what we’ve got”). We expect better from the woman who penned a title as memorable as I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer.

The nadir of this sorry exercise comes with the unbearably schmaltz-laden and saccharin duet with fellow Swede Nicolai Dunger titled Golden Teeth and Silver Medals. It’s difficult to describe but no understatement to say that it would be preferable to listen to Elton John and Kiki Dee’s wretched Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.

Ultimately, Colonia has an awful lot of ideas, but doesn’t really know what to do with them and the majority of tracks end up sounding messy and - like the rest of us following Christmas - carrying a little too much extra weight. When Persson repeatedly sings “I will slip your mind” on Love Has Left the Room, it’s oddly self-prophesising; you’ll struggle to remember much of this record after hearing it. It’s too early to be proclaiming the death of the side-project just yet but as far as A Camp are concerned, don’t give up the day job.

The BBC Sessions

Belle and Sebastian - The BBC Sessions
released 17 November 2008 on Jeepster

God bless the BBC. Sure, it can be argued that they’ve inflicted My Family and George Lamb upon us, but by the same token, they’ve also gifted us The Day Today and the shows of John Peel. Talking of the great man, The BBC Sessions is dedicated to the memory of everybody’s favourite verbose DJ. The final four songs on this collection are from a Peel session (as well as being previously unreleased) and prove to be the climax to a fascinating document charting the growth of a much-loved yet critically underrated band.

Starting with a Mark Radcliffe session from 1996, Belle and Sebastian are more confident and assured at the beginning of their career than you may remember. The band are practically note perfect, with Judy and the Dream of Horses in particular proving Stuart Murdoch’s often-repeated point that the production on If You’re Feeling Sinister didn’t do it justice.

As the album progresses, B&S grow in confidence and stature, becoming more like the crafters of immaculate pop tunes that we know today with every song. The crashing symbols and fine guitar flourishes on Seymour Stein show a band comfortable with who they are. Hell, they’re even cavalier enough to interfere with arguably the finest single in their back catalogue, Lazy Line Painter Jane. Unfortunately, it proves to be a wrong move, lacking the immediacy of the original and having a rather forced-sounding climax.

For the biggest fans of the band, the real selling point of this album is the tracks from the aforementioned Peel session. These showcase the direction Belle and Sebastian were heading on the run-up to their most recent album, The Life Pursuit; chiming guitars with a hint of swaggering funk. The Go-Betweens referencing Shoot the Sexual Athlete being the most surprising for anyone who still thinks of Belle and Sebastian as the none-more-indie charming shambles who created Tigermilk.

The second disc is taken from a 2001 concert, where the band rattle through the more energetic numbers in their repertoire while awkwardly interacting with an audience content to do little else but scream. Covers of Here Comes the Sun, Waiting for the Man and The Boys are Back in Town tell us little we didn’t already know; that these are classic pop songs which don’t need anything adding. However, it’s well worth listening to with an all-singing, all-dancing Boy with the Arab Strap proving the highlight.

So, this may not be a must-have and it’s not going to make many end of year best-of lists but that’s always been the Belle and Sebastian way. A sad footnote is the fact that Isobel Campbell left shortly after these recordings and given her sterling work with gravel-voiced Mark Lanegan and Belle and Sebastian’s move to the mainstream, this album also raises the question of what might have been. Still, it’s comforting to know that your £139.50 a year is being put to good use.