Let’s check out another of
Trollheart's
Albums I listened to early in my prog rock life will always hold a special resonance for me; these were, after all, the albums and artists that led me on to others who became favourites, and at the time I had no reviewer ambitions, so I just listened to them for pleasure, not criticism (though I might have reviewed them mentally, and I think I did: I just had no outlet at the time to put such thoughts out there) and many times too, as at the time I had little if any access to the internet, there were no streaming services or download sites, and I could only listen to what I could afford to buy, and that wasn’t a lot at the time. So in one way perhaps I got stuck in a rut, listening to the same albums and artists over and over again, but in another way it gave me a real appreciation of, and made me very familiar with these albums, to the extent that I can easily review them now without even having to listen to them.
But I will listen to them, because why not?
Album title: Fact and Fiction
Artist: Twelfth Night
Nationality: English
Year: 1982
Chronology: 1 (*)
The Trollheart Factor: 3
Track Listing: We Are Sane ((i) Te Dium (ii) We Are Sane (iii) Dictator’s Excuse-me)/Human Being/This City/World Without End/Fact and Fiction/The Poet Sniffs a Flower/Creep Show/Love Song
Comments: More than likely having been recommended the album by Kerrang! (my Bible growing up, and one of the only ways I heard about new music) this was one of a clutch of purchases I made after falling under the spell of Marillion, and while it’s quite different to the Fish-led albums of the early and mid-eighties, and was nowhere near as successful, for a debut it’s pretty damn stunning. It’s perhaps interesting that the album opens on a boy soprano-style vocal from Geoff Mann, the kind of thing you would hear from a choirboy, and he went on to pursue a career in the church. Anyway, his voice soon dips into deeper, darker areas and the song gets going. Being nearly ten and a half minutes long it changes as it goes along, and is in fact split into three sections. It’s almost a play set to music, really quite impressive, and focuses on the idea of enforced conformity and the loss of identity and individuality.
Another sort of boy soprano introduction to “Human Being”. I really love the lush keyboard and then the tinkling piano; Mann’s voice gets really angry and acerbic here, also sounds like there’s cello but I don’t think Twelfth Night used one did they? Great guitar solo from Andy Revell, while “This City” is pretty much driven on Clive Mitten’s evocative keys, with attendant sounds of children playing. One thing Twelfth Night used a lot was sound effects - you saw many of them in “We Are Sane” and here they are again, adding to the atmosphere of the song. They work really well, and it’s not like they need them, as Geoff Mann’s voice, once he gets going, really commands your attention.
“World Without End” is a short but gorgeous, almost sepulchral instrumental and leads into the title track, which bounces along with great enthusiasm and some seriously fun keyboard arpeggios, and into another instrumental, “The Poet Sniffs a Flower”, which opens on a lovely classical guitar with soft keys behind it, then picks up speed rather unexpectedly, ending as an entirely different animal. And that takes us to the penultimate track, but certainly the one around which the album is based, to my mind anyway, and if not that, certainly the longest, coming in a mere few seconds short of twelve minutes.
“Creepshow” brings back memories of carnivals, Victorian sanitariums and even prisons and experimental laboratories, and again given its length as you’d expect it changes quite a lot as it progresses, opening on a soft acoustic guitar line and soft keys, but soon changes in tone and timbre as Mann, as the guide through the horror show, gives an almost Oscar-winning performance in spoken terror. The ideas espoused in the song are chilling, and Mann’s almost casually cruel diction makes it feel real, even acceptable, recalling ideas of the Nazi experimental hospitals just before World War II.
There are some really weird sound effects that lend power to the
denouement of the song, making it sound like something out of an episode of
Dr. Who or
Black Mirror, and Revell does some of his finest work here, including an emotional outro solo that recalls the very best of that fine young man from Pink Floyd. Finally, and almost unexpectedly, the album ends on a little coda, a chance to catch breath and squeeze open eyes long held shut, to confirm the horror is over, the calm after the storm, the rainbow after the downpour, the slowing of the madly thumping heart. All is well.
Or.
Is it?
Track(s) I liked: Everything
Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing
One standout: “Creepshow”
One rotten apple: n/a
Overall impression: Probably - though I don’t know because I haven’t heard many of their other albums - a case of a band crafting the perfect debut album, and having to struggle to equal such an opus. Were this their only album, however, it would still be, I believe, sufficient to elevate them to the rarefied heights of prog’s elite. Stunning.
Rating: 10/10
Future Plan: Must try to hear their other material. And RIP Geoff Mann.
(*) There were three cassette tapes prior, so technically it's their fourth release, but given it's the first actual (at the time) vinyl album, I'd categorise it as their proper debut.
FYI If you want a fuller more detailed review, here’s my look at the album posted in July of 2011.
Fact and Fiction