Trollheart

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Trollheart

Yeah, yeah, even the worm is late rising today. Hey, not so loud! Man, what a night! Anyway, Happy New Year to all our readers, and what should we start off 2012 with, I wonder...?

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Trollheart

I'd like to start off 2012 proper with a review of an album that quite literally saved my sanity at a time when I was in danger of losing it. Ever spent a month sick in bed, with no TV, no computer, no entertainment of any kind? You had damn well better have something good to listen to, is all I can say. Luckily, I had this...

The man who --- Travis --- 1999 (Independente)


Say what you like, I've always had a soft spot for this album. I identify it with a time when I was very sick, unable to get out of bed in fact, just prior to the turning of the millennium (could there be a more appropriate foreshadowing of how my life was about to go for the next ten years, with my sister being diagnosed in 2001 with MS and my having to take voluntary redundancy from my job of almost thirty years to look after her in 2009?), and two albums kept me going, being all I had to listen to.

I was not at home, but recuperating at my aunt's house (ours being too cold, not having at the time any central heating and winter well into its stride) and had more or less been rushed there on Christmas Eve, suffering from what was close to pneumonia. With little time to gather anything I had grabbed my "boombox" and a few CDs --- two in fact --- and these where what sustained me throughout what became almost a month of illness and inaction. One was Vangelis' excellent “Oceanic”, which I reviewed already, and the other was this album.

I had only bought it on the basis of having heard the two singles, and with itunes still only at this point a mad gleam in Steve Jobs' eye, and the YouTube creators still pulling a paycheque from Paypal, there was little else to do if you wanted to hear new music than actually buy the album, take the chance and hope it turned out okay. Of course, many times it did not, and at first I wasn't sure about “The man who”, but I soon grew to love it. Or perhaps it grew on me through enforced repeated listening, but I prefer to think the former.

It starts on “Writing to reach you”, real post-Britpop feel with jangly guitars and a pretty morose vocal from Fran Healy, the kind of song that would make Coldplay sound all warm and fuzzy! It's a good opener though, and you'll find that as the album goes on most of it is low-key, melancholy and a little drab, but this really only adds to the charm of the thing. Great guitars from Healy and Andy Dunlop, and a very melodic song with a yearning message and a sense of desperation mixed with hope, perhaps false: ”I'm writing to reach you/ I'm not gonna reach you.”

“The fear” is a slower, more bluesy type track, still low-key and with a certain element of the Doors in its subtle melody, Healy's vocal still restrained and quite low, the guitars much lighter in the mix this time, with a lot of effects and feedback as the song fades out, then another sad song in “As you are”, Healy this time raising his voice a little more --- although it should be understood, even when he's singing quietly you never have a problem hearing him or making out what it is he's saying. Well, not much anyway. There's a certain sense of optimism about this song, with the melody a little more uplifting than the previous two, the guitars perhaps not joyous but at least not thinking about slitting their fretboards.

Yeah, the album in general is not one for depressives (or is, depending on how you want to look at it), and you don't listen to it to be cheered up, but as I say, back then as 1999 became 2000 and I cursed the new millennium and the old from my sickbed, this album kept me relatively sane and I'll always owe it that debt of gratitude. As a result of having only the two CDs to listen to, also, I found I tended to have to listen to both all the way through, whereas in normal circumstances I might not have had the patience to get to know all the tracks on this. Usually I would skip past tracks I didn't like, or that didn't hit the right chord with me straight away, but with my limited repertoire I had little choice but to let the whole thing wash over and sink into me.

At any rate, the wait for a more upbeat track is rewarded with the arrival of the single “Driftwood”. With its big guitar sound and humming drums, the lyric is still downbeat, but it feels like more of a happy song, with its idea which can be interpreted as hopeful, good advice. It became the first real hit Travis had, and brought them to the attention of the main record-buying public --- I know it's where I first heard of them. Great song. Things go right back down, in terms of mood, then, for “The last laugh of the laughter”, with Fran Healy again crooning in a low voice with a very country-style song, kind of reminds me of the Irish never-weres, the Stars of Heaven (yeah I know, but I'll be reviewing them soon: just have to get this USB turntable set up), very laidback until the drums cut loose and the guitar gets going a little. One thing about Travis is that you often find, certainly with this album, that you need to turn it up as otherwise it can be hard to hear what Healy is singing.

I always wondered, the man who what? What was the title of the album supposed to be? And now I know, thanks to Wiki. It's apparently a reference to a book called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”. So now you know too. Feel better? No? Thought not. Another big hit single is up next, turning up the power and getting the tempo and volume much higher, “Turn” is one of my favourite tracks on the album, perhaps the favourite. The lyrical content is, as ever, morose and sad, but the guitar sound is pretty huge, Neil Primrose bashes out the beat on the drumstool, and even Healy raises his voice to more than a mutter, putting a lot of passion into the song, and it's no surprise it was a top ten hit.

Their huge hit is up next, and everyone knows “Why does it always rain on me”, and the story of how, when they walked onstage at Glastonbury to play the song, the sky, which had been clear for hours previous, suddenly began to pour rain down on them. Couldn't have organised a better press release, Fran! Opening on what sounds like violin, the song is one of their most upbeat, in terms of tempo, but again the lyric is sad, depressed, melancholy, as if you couldn't tell from the title! A real anthem for depressed teens who always believe the world is against them, and that everything is always someone else's fault. It's a great song though, one of the boppiest on the album, and it established them forever as a major act.

Healy writes every song on this album, bar one, where on “Luv” he's joined by someone called Adam Seymour. Harmonica fits perfectly into this song, giving it a real feeling of loneliness and isolation, acoustic and electric guitar joining in beautiful harmony, Healy's understated vocal fitting the song like a glove. “She's so strange” is another acoustic number, with some nice backing vocals, but probably my least favourite on the album. The song always sounds like it doesn't know what it wants to be, a ballad or a more uptempo pop song, and never really breaks out into either, remaining frustratingly in the middle.

The closer, officially, is called “Slide show”, though there is a hidden track, and in fairness it's better than the one that precedes it. “Slide show” opens with the sound of slamming car doors and keys in locks, then goes into a semi-uptempo acoustic guitar riff, with some mournful violin coming in along the way to add to the atmosphere of the song, then it's joined by electric guitar as the track gets a little more insistent, before dropping back to the acoustic for the ending. But as I say I prefer the hidden track, which seems to go under the name of “Blue flashing light”, and for me, it's this track that closes the album.

It's the unsettling tale of domestic violence, as a girl is abused by her drunken father: ”Talk to your daddy in that tone of voice/ There's a belt hanging over the door!” Eventually she is pushed too far and burns down the house, hence the flashing blue light of the fire tender outside her home. The song is fast, frantic even, almost Nick Cave-like in its intensity, with strummed electric guitar accompanying Healy's bitter voice as he relates the thoughts of the girl, whose friends ”Never call you/ Never call you/ No they never ever/ Never bloody ever/ Ever call you!”

As a hidden track, this is wasted. It shows a spark of genius and real passion that is lacking in a fairly laidback album, and you only discover it, like most hidden tracks, if you leave the CD to play to the end. There's about three minutes of blank space between “Slide show” and this, so most people, if they didn't know the track was there, might be inclined to just shut off the CD, which is a pity, as they'd miss a great song and seeing a whole different side of Travis.

In essence though, “The man who” is a very low-key, melancholy album. It's gentle and it's fragile, and the songs on it are almost exclusively about human relations and stories. Occasionally it gets going but these moments are few and far between. However, it's the pauses, as it were, between the tracks where you really get what Travis are all about, like reading between the lines. If you can understand that, come to the deep realisation my fevered mind did as I lay in my sickbed that December in 1999, you'll appreciate and enjoy this album as it was meant to be.

TRACKLISTING

1. Writing to reach you
2. The fear
3. As you are
4. Driftwood
5. The last laugh of the laughter
6. Turn
7. Why does it always rain on me
8. Luv
9. She's so strange
10. Slide show (incorporating “hidden track” “Blue flashing light”)

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Trollheart

American slang --- The Gaslight Anthem --- 2010 (SideOneDummy)


Whenever I see the words “punk rock” it always sends a shiver down my spine. I know it did so much to shake up the complacency in music in the late seventies, and I know many decent bands started out as punk (The Clash, The Buzzcocks, The Ramones, The Damned, lots of other bands with “the” at the start of their name...) but it just never ever appealed to me. So I don't listen to punk rock bands, and perhaps that's my loss, but that's just how it is. The Gaslight Anthem (where do they get their names from, these bands?) would have passed right by under my radar had it not been for the issue of “Classic Rock” magazine I bought, which happened to include one of their songs on the coverdisc, and considering many of the bands on that disc were not to my taste, it's perhaps surprising that a band styled as punk would be one of the few I did enjoy.

So now, here I am with their most recent album, ready to listen to it for the first time, with not a little trepidation, but here goes anyway. It opens with the title track, big heavy guitar sound, crunching drums from Benny Horowitz, great powerful guitars from Alex Rosamilia and Brian Fallon, who is also their vocalist. This is the track I heard on the CD mentioned above, and it's a great tough rocker, definitely more hard than punk though. Good backing vocals, great beat, excellent melody, more like a heavier John Cougar Mellencamp I feel than anything else, very Americana, as they say. Strong vocals from Fallon, and you get the feeling he's holding back his full register.

The Gaslight Anthem claim a lot of allegiance to New Jersey's most famous son, and indeed Fallon does sound a little like Springsteen on occasion, but that's not to his detriment as a singer, and “Stay lucky” is a faster, punchier track, almost rockabilly meets punk with some great guitar work from Rosamilia and Fallon, a solid bass line from Alex Levine, and there's a great sense of enthusiasm about the music here, like four guys from Jersey just enjoying themselves. A quick scan down the tracks shows nothing unexpected in terms of length: only one track is over the four minute mark, and it's the closer. The rest are all around three, and “Bring it on” opens with an almost blues melody, before it kicks into life with a certain Edge-style guitar from Alex R, and Fallon almost channelling Springsteen (I know he's not dead, but you get what I mean): you could almost hear this on the Boss's next album.

There's a great feeling of power too about the Gaslight Anthem, and I'm sure they must be amazing live. They've been together for only four years now, but have released three album in that short space of time, of which this is the third, with another planned for this year. “The Diamond Church Street choir” adds a touch of cool funk to proceedings, before becoming another rock anthem, with finger-clicking and sparse guitars. Perhaps an odd choice for subject matter, but the Gaslights make it work, and there's a definite reminder of very early Springsteen, a la “Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ” or “The wild, the innocent and the E Street shuffle”. Sorry to keep making the Springsteen comparisons, but they're there quite clearly, though the band has without doubt its own identity and would never be accused of being a Springsteen rip-off outfit.

“The queen of lower Chelsea” is another street rocker, with jangly guitars and light percussion, and “Orphans”, despite its low-key title suggesting a ballad, is nothing of the sort, in fact one of the fastest tracks on the album so far, a real air-puncher that trundles along like a joyous express train, Horowitz getting to really cut loose on the skins and relishing every moment. Apparently the similarlities to Springsteen have led to the Boss jamming onstage with them, and they're obviously big fans. There's a nod to rap then on “Boxer”, the shortest song on the album, then it takes off as another headlong rocker, The Gaslight Anthem displaying their allegiance to another rock and punk icon, Joe Strummer: it's just impossible to sit still when these guys rock out!

There's something of a slowdown in the tempo, though not much, for “Old haunts”, a rock cruncher, with some pretty introspective guitar as Fallon snaps ”Don't sing your songs/ About the good times/ Those times are gone/ And you should just let them go!” There's a lot of anger, bottled-up frustration running through this album, but it comes out in a really positive, energetic way, so much so that it's often hard to realise that Fallon is raging while he rocks. To paraphrase “Bleeding Gums” Murphy, rock is a fire that comes out of your fingers, so you'd better put a guitar in them! Back up to top gear then for “The spirit of jazz”, as The Gaslight Anthem remind us that the best music comes from the streets, and they never forget where they've come from. The closer, “We did it when we were young”, starts out slow and restrained, the closest TGA have come to a ballad on this album. Like most of their songs it's tinged with bitterness and regret, memories of choices made which were perhaps not the right ones, decisions that can no longer be undone. It's a sobering and rather unexpected end to what is mostly a very high-energy album, full of power rockers and anthems, as their name suggests and which they definitely live up to.

I definitely see more (well, hear more) of rock than punk rock here, although the unbridled energy and the sense of wanting to tear down the walls and rebuild anew is evident throughout the album. From what I know of punk rock --- and this is only from the birth of it, with the likes of the Pistols, UK Subs and so forth --- this is a lot more melodic and together than I had expected. Yes, I'm probably doing punk rock a huge disservice, and I don't know anything about the current crop of bands to attempt judging them, but this has been a huge surprise. I feel the energy, the power of youth, but no three-chord wonders and no screamed or roared vocals: has punk changed that much, or are The Gaslight Anthem more than they're sold as? I suspect the latter, in spades.

Really, you couldn't choose a better album to begin 2012 with. Although two years old now (okay, one, really) it's still one of the best albums I've heard this year (being 2011, obviously) and one of the most accomplished, and perhaps it's fair to say unexpected. If you're feeling the New Year Blues, need a kick up the arse to start 2012 or if you just need something to clear away the cobwebs and begin the new year on a high note, do yourself a favour and get this album. It's the cure for what ails ya!

TRACKLISTING

1. American slang
2. Stay lucky
3. Bring it on
4. The Diamond Church Street choir
5. The queen of lower Chelsea
6. Orphans
7. Boxer
8. Old haunts
9. The spirit of jazz
10. We did it when we were young

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Ah, Jimmy Nail! Need the worm say more?

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jackhammer

I cannot stand Travis at all but greatly appreciated the reasons behind you grabbing that album like a beacon and holding onto it and that is how powerful music can be.

Awesome post.

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Trollheart

Ah, a new year, time for resolutions and all that nonsense! Well, I usually don't make (m)any, but there's surely no better way to start 2012 than to rifle through the massive amount of unheard albums in my collection, pick one out and decide to listen to it for the first time. Of course, deciding which album to listen to is always a problem, but I happened to be down near the T-Z section and I came across these guys, realised I'd downloaded albums from them about a year ago, always intending to listen to their music but never got a chance to.

So that seems to be settled then.

Christ 0 --- Vanden Plas --- 2006 (InsideOut)


The fifth album from German progressive metal band Vanden Plas, “Christ 0” is a concept album. Now, I thought the title was “Christ zero”, some sort of allegorical attempt to flip the bird to the Almighty, as perhaps you might expect, like a score: Metal one, Christ zero, or something, but it turns out it's a lot more involved than that. The actual title of the album appears to be pronounced “Chris -toe”, as in, the “0” is pronounced as the letter O, and the Christ as krist. How do I know that, and why would you care? Well, the concept the album is loosely based around is the famous novel by Alexander Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, and so the “hero” in the album is Christo, but just referred to as 0. There's another protagonist, an inspector from Interpol (hey, I told you it was loosely based around the novel!) called X, who follows the murderous exploits of 0 as he's released from prison for a crime he never committed, and goes about taking his revenge.

So, enough backstory then. What's the album like? Well, it opens with the title track, on ominous keyboard and then vocal choir with drums before the guitars cut in, stabbing out a real dramatic intro to the album, Stephen Lill taking axe duties while Andy Kuntz (who's that laughing, down there at the back? Settle down!) sings clearly and with a slightly unhinged tone in his voice as the released prisoner intent on hunting down those who wronged him, and Kuntz also takes the part of Inspector X, who is barely in the song, just introducing himself. Great solos from Lill as his brother, I assume, Andreas bashes out the skins, and there's power and energy in this song, and a real sense of something beginning.

“Postcard to God” keeps up the power and tempo, with great backing vocals and seeming to be a song taking place in 0's cell as he prays to God, but receives no answer, saying ”And I'm sending you a message/ And I'm sending you a prayer/ All the echoes whisper in my ear/ Is there anybody there?” Good keyboard runs on this track, adding to the sense of desperation and frustration, but it's Stephen Lill who really drives the song, through his classy guitar riffs and solos. Mind you, there's a great keyboard solo from Gunter Werno too, who co-writes almost every track with Kuntz. The choir employed here by Vanden Plas for the first time ever on one of their albums is used to great effect in this song, particularly as it winds to a close.

Both of these opening tracks are long, but they're nothing compared to “Wish you were here”, a nine-minute monster that even then isn't the longest on the album! Starting with lonely, whistling keyboards it soon explodes into a full-fledged rocker, with Werno's keyboards and piano taking a leading role as 0 details his plans for revenge and X compiles a file on him, stating matter-of-factly ”Not the “gain type” of serial assassin/ He's not motivated by hedonism/ Untypical --- no Gilles de Rais/ No Bathory, not Jack, so I got the suspicion/ He's a man with a clear sagacious mission.”

GREAT keyboard solo in this song, but once again the old stumbling block comes up when dealing with lyrics prepared by non-English-speaking (as their first language) bands: a lot of this does not make any real sense to me, although in fairness I know what the guys are trying to say. It's just how it's framed that makes it seem often nonsensical. Very catchy for a nine-minute song, though, with tons of hooks and helping to flesh out the character of 0 very well. The last two minutes of the song are instrumental, Stephen Lill and Gunther Werno meshing very well as a unit to provide a really powerful ending to the piece.

Acoustic piano then introduces “Silently”, but it doesn't stay that way for long, not if our man Stephen has his way, and he does! Almost as long as the previous track, clocking in at just over eight minutes, this one seems to go back to when 0 was in prison, and details (as far as I can make out) his attempts to stay sane, playing movies out in his mind. This is what I think: the lyrics in this album are quite obscure, and the story not that easy to follow. There are some really nice piano sequences where Werno pulls the whole thing back to total simplicity, as well as violins which could be made on a synthesiser, I don't know, but they're very effective. Some quite Yes-style keyboard thrown in too. Like its predecessor, the last two minutes of “Silently” are taken up by instrumental performances, in particular a lovely little piece of Spanish guitar by Stephen Lill and some frantic keyswork by Gunther Werno.

If the lyric to “Silently” was obscure, I have no clue what the next song is about. “Shadow I am” could be 0 speaking about how hard it is for him to reintegrate into society, having spent so long imprisoned, or could relate to how he can slip to and from each murder, or again it could be the inspector, X, talking about his own expertise. I really don't know. I've seldom found lyrics so hard to interpret, or follow, particularly in a concept album, where surely following the storyline is paramount? At any rate, it's another fast rocker, good melody, with some really spooky keyboards from Werno and some tinkly piano running on top of them, another powerful and intricate solo from Stephen Lill and a very abrupt guitar ending.

Things finally slow down for “Fireroses dance”, with Werno's beautiful piano painting the scene as Kuntz sings of the end of the world, it seems, the passing of things, though again it's hard to determine really what the lyric means. A really spectacular ballad this, with some great strings arrangements, presumably on the keyboards, and some nice introspective guitar, Kuntz's voice passionate and melancholic. I would hazard --- and I have no idea if I'm anywhere close here --- that it's meant to be 0 crying for the things that have passed away while he's been in prison: the friends, the lovers, the towns that have changed, the technology that has overtaken the world. Look, your guess is as good as mine, but it's a lovely song. Gets a little frenetic halfway through as Werno's keys go into overdrive and the choir make a welcome and dramatic reappearance.

Coming in on an almost classical piano introduction, “Somewhere alone in the dark” namechecks Alexander Dumas, and also mentions a son, so it could be 0 saying goodbye to his son before the end, but to be honest, I've about given up trying to follow the story at this point. Maybe I'm just not that good a reviewer, but I can't get my head around the lyrics to make them show me any sort of plotline, so I'm just concentrating on the music. Which is damn good. This is an angry song, lots of heavy guitar, thumping drumming and snarled vocals, then we're into the longest track.

At just over ten minutes, “January sun” starts on quiet piano then brings in some nice string arrangements, before upping the tempo slightly, introducing the guitar and it would seem also introducing X and 0 to each other (maybe then can play tic-tac-toe? Sorry, but it's really frustrating not to be able to even loosely follow this story...) The song goes through some changes over the course of its ten-minute length, from mid-paced rocker to almost-ballad, from triumph to despair, from prog rock to prog metal: quite dizzying, and very impressive. Everything slows down halfway through, with violins and synth passages, then riffing guitar and military-style drums take the song back towards its rock-out ending, Stephen Lill ripping off more solos as the song heads to the finish line. The choir add their muscle to the finale, just wish I knew what they were singing about.

There's a sudden stop at the nine-minute mark, then solo piano and vocal before the big finish winds the song up, and we're into “Lost in the silence”, opening on nice classical guitar and piano: is this another ballad? Certainly sounds like it, but openings can be deceiving, as I've found out before. But no, it does seem to be a ballad that closes the album, and a nice one too. Actually, although it's the last song, there is one more left.

I normally don't do this. Extra, special-edition or bonus tracks are something I normally don't touch, and this should be doubly so, as it was only included on the first pressings of the album, but it's on mine, and as it's one of my all-time favourites I'm going to break my own rule and include it in the review.

It's actually a cover of a song that appears in the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar”, my favourite song from that musical, “Gethsemane”. Here it's rearranged for the prog metal community, and Werno's piano and lovely violins complement Kuntz's clear vocal very well. I could never hear anyone do this song as well as Ted Neeley --- Ian who? --- but Kuntz makes a very decent job of it, Stephen Lill's soulful guitar adding an extra dimension to this classic. I believe all the guys in Vanden Plas have been in versions of this opera, which probably explains the inclusion of the track, but no matter the reason, I'm glad they put it on the disc. Nothing to do with the concept, of course, it's nevertheless extremely welcome.

As for the album, well I do like it, and will be listening to more of Vanden Plas's music in the future, but I'm just disappointed that I couldn't follow --- make head or tail of, if I'm honest --- the storyline, as it did seem to be interesting and well-planned, but I lost my way pretty quickly and never found it again. The music is great though, the individual performances excellent, and all in all, a very good album, but had I been able to get the concept, follow the story, I think I would have enjoyed it on another level entirely.

TRACKLISTING

1. Christ 0
2. Postcard to God
3. Wish you were here
4. Silently
5. Shadow I am
6. Fireroses dance
7. Somewhere alone in the dark
8. January sun
9. Lost in silence
10. Gethsemane (bonus track)

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Trollheart

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Ah, poor old Trollheart was only three years old when this was a hit! Bless! If only he had remained so young and innocent and handsome --- erk! That foot just missed the worm! (Cough!) Anyhoo, this is the Beach Boys with a superclassic. Enjoy! Now where can the worm hide and be safe...?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018