The Batlord

__________________

Plankton

Good to see you (almost) back. You know... there's a 12 day (all 552 episodes) Simpsons marathon on FXX (an American cable channel) going on right now. Everytime they have an episode with CMB, I can't help but think of TH.

__________________
See location...

Anteater

__________________
Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Unknown Soldier

Good to see you back on here, interested to see what stuff you'll be reviewing.

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

This .. this (sob) .. This is the most ... (sob) .. the most touching of all the tributes and messages here! I know ya missed me Batty: I sure missed you, ya big lug! C'mere! Gimme a hug, bro!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Given to the wild --- Maccabees --- 2012 (Fiction)


I’m notorious for buying albums on a whim, because I like the cover, title or because it just looks cool, but this album was one I had been hearing about, though without hearing any of the actual music. Seemed like a lot of people were putting it in their “pick of 2012”, and granted these were people I didn’t know, but even so I wondered was there anything to all this high praise, or would this turn out to be yet another overhyped boring generic album (hello, “Night visions”!), with people going mad about some band who would induce nothing but the deepest shades of meh in me? Only one way to find out.

I was really quite amazed at what I found. Considering I have never heard of this band before, the level of quality and professionalism on this album just floored me. Every track just gets better as you listen to it, and there is no tipping point, no demarcation zone after which you can say well the album was great up to here but then it began to slide. It really doesn’t. Right up to the last track it holds the quality and keeps the attention, and the only real disappointment is that there are only thirteen tracks on it, because I would happily have listened to twice that.

If there is any letdown at all --- and it’s a big if --- it’s in the opener, which really doesn’t count as it’s not even a track as such, not even an instrumental, just two minutes plus of mostly ambient sound, with deep organs and sound effects, and a sort of softly chanted vocal basically consisting of the title, leading us into the first track proper, where it all gets going. The title track actually segues in on some nice laidback guitar into “Child”, acquainting us with the vocals of Orlando Weeks, the smooth basswork of Rupert Jarvis and the understated but no less great fret style of Felix and Hugo White, while brother Will makes some great horns sounds on the keys. “Child” is a slow enough song, but something I found to be a trademark of the Maccabees, at least on this, their only album I’ve heard to date, is that slow songs often pick up in tempo near the end, as this one does, kicking out the stays and rocking along nicely, taking us into what was their second single.

Amazingly to me, “Feel to follow” did stupendously badly in the charts, not even breaking into the top 100. It’s a great uptempo track with a fine piano backbone, great vocal harmonies and a real sense of northern soul in it, with an infectious chorus. Halfway through it winds down for a few seconds before coming back strongly on the back of the Whites’ superb guitar work and some excellent percussion from Sam Doyle. This should have been at least a top ten single, and I could not tell you why this didn’t happen. In fact, none of their singles did well it would seem, but since when was that a hallmark of a good album? “Ayla” then dances along an a totally catchy rippling piano line and a hook to die for. Weeks is in fine form on this, and again though released as a single it seems to have bombed.

Another uptempo song, it rocks along with real purpose and features a little less of the guitar work from the White brothers, letting the keys come more to the fore, with some quite heavy percussion working almost in counterpoint. It’s the sort of song you’re still singing long after it’s finished, and we head towards “Glimmer”, with a really nice drum opening and some chimy guitar that kind of reminds me of Simple Minds at their best. Good slice of classic Prefab Sprout in there too, some really bright keyboards peppering the tune, then one of my favourite tracks on the album is “Forever I’ve known”, a big, bouncy rocker with bags of enthusiasm and energy, though it starts off more like something out of Tom Waits’ catalogue, with screeching, howling guitars and echoey percussion, a slow laidback vocal, sort of a feeling of Native American melody about it before it picks up in about the third minute, the ease with which the previously somewhat discordant screeching guitar melds in with the melody and complements it truly impressive. A real example of a song building up to something special.

A guitar reminiscent of The Edge takes over then as the percussion gets stronger and more insistent, as it all falls back in the fourth minute on soft keyboard, coming back in on single guitar notes before the whole band punches back in to take the song to its powerful and energetic conclusion. Superb, a real standout. And they just keep coming, with “Heave” up next, introduced on a strings-style keyboard from Will White, a slow instrumental intro almost Floydesque in places, a soulful, almost mournful vocal from Weeks tearing at your heartstrings. It seems to be hard to know when you can class a song by these guys as a ballad, but “Heave” does seem to fit the bill, soft, shimmering percussion and lush keyboard supported by little guitar riffs, but then it kicks up in the third minute and becomes a pretty different animal. Certainly nobody could call this band predictable.

“Pelican” was the lead single, relatively well known I believe even though it also fell flat on its face chartwise, and it’s very much an upbeat song, with the lyric sung three times each line, so you get ”Before you know it, before you know it, before you know it/ You’re pushing up the daisies.” Probably one of the hardest rock tracks on the album, it’s driven on sharp guitar work from the Whites, with growling bass from Jarvis and punchy drumwork, the vocal almost African chant in nature in places. The beat really picks up in the third minute as the song goes into overdrive, and if you can keep your feet and fingers from tapping while listening to this, you’re a better man than I am! Another fast song then is “Went away”, though it starts off low-key enough, with simple synth lines and Weeks’ vocal sounding very much like Ricky Ross (no, not him! The one from Deacon Blue!), then guitars and drums launch in as the intensity of the track increases.

Like so many of The Maccabees’ songs, this gets dialled back for a moment before it comes storming back with a huge finish, keyboards and guitar joining, as the drums punch it forward and Weeks’ voice strengthens and gets more passionate, the tempo upping near the end then abruptly stopping, as what surely must be a drum machine brings in “Go” with sampler keyboards before they’re supplemented by heavier synth lines and joined by strong guitar from the White brothers. A tale of, I think, love trying to survive against the odds, it’s a vocal full of fire and passion from Orlando Weeks, and a nice little bass solo from Rupert Jarvis, with a big powerful punch of an ending.

An atmospheric synth melody then draws in “Unknow”, which features Catherine Pockson from The Alpines on vocals, Weeks’ own vocal returning almost to the keening, moaning style of the opener. The Whites power the song along on their twin guitars while the rhythm section lays down the backbone of the track along which Weeks winds his way vocally. Another hard powerful rocking track, it has some of the strongest guitar on the album, but Pockson is I feel somewhat wasted on it, being relegated to the background mostly. It’s not really till the last minute or so that she gets her chance to shine, and then she does extremely well. “Slowly one” is a much more low-key affair, almost an acapella opening, Weeks supported only by soft guitar on a sort of motown-ish vocal. It’s not till about halfway through that the song comes properly to life on the back of some wah-wah guitar and a powerful seventies-style keyboard. Nice sung instrumental ending (if you know what I mean; and if you don't, listen to the album!) with some great vocal harmonies.

“Grew up at midnight” ends the album, and like much of the work I’ve listened to here from this band it starts off slow but then really gets going. With a sort of church organ keys start, and a falsetto vocal, it seems to be a remembrance of youth and first love, picking up a little after the first minute but it doesn’t really hit its stride until nearly the third minute, with a big shouted chorus and a powerful guitar ending, then cutting off right at the end to return to the muted keys sound and end the album close to how it began.

TRACKLISTING

1. Given to the wild (intro)
2. Child
3. Feel to follow
4. Ayla
5. Glimmer
6. Forever I’ve known
7. Heave
8. Pelican
9. Went away
10. Go
11. Unknow
12. Slowly one
13. Grew up at midnight

It’s always gratifying to try something and find you really like it. This is even truer when it comes to music, because usually --- though not always --- this can lead to further new enjoyment as you then seek out the artiste’s other work. I haven’t done that yet, but this is The Maccabees’ third album, so I’m definitely going to take a look at what they did prior to this. Just proves that sometimes hype can be correct, and also that just because your singles flop it doesn’t mean that your album isn’t worth listening to.

This went down, I think, as one of my top albums of 2012, or if not, that was only because I listened to it after I had already compiled my list. It’s certainly getting into my alltime top albums though, as this is one album that, no matter how many times I listen to it I still enjoy it, and in fact, sometimes relistening to it just reminds me how damn good it is.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Plankton

Good to see you back!

__________________
See location...

Trollheart

While I wait impatiently for a new Waits album (come on, Tom! It’s going on for three years now! Stop teasing us!) I thought I’d fill the gap by returning to the section where I examine the genius of the man through his lyrics. I’ve said before that Waits makes his characters come alive in the music, but they’re never, or seldom ever, heroes. Almost exclusively male, they’re the downtrodden, the deadbeat and the drunk, the disaffected and the disenfranchised, and lots of other things beginning with “d”. They wander, stagger or limp through the cityscapes he paints for them, sitting on a damp park bench at night in some forgotten corner, sucking cheap supermarket whiskey from a bottle wrapped in brown paper, staring out the grimy windows of a nineteenth-floor apartment dreaming of freedom while trying to ignore the squalling of their three children and the incessant nagging of their wives, or staging a badly-planned and doomed bank heist.

They hardly ever win, there are no happy endings for them and few if any have ever seen, much less lived in, a house with a picket fence. They mostly believe in God, not because they want to, or have faith, but just because most of the time they’re too depressed or drunk to care. They only go into churches when it’s raining and they need somewhere to wait out the night --- but usually get thrown out by priests who have had enough of their using the church as a sanctuary --- really! Was that how God intended his house to be used? --- and if they see a woman on the street they may mumble and tip their battered hat, but that’s about as far as interaction with the opposite sex goes for them. They have no time for love. Love is for those who have houses, jobs, families, money. Love is not a part of their world.

And yet, from time to time we will get glimpses of a somewhat settled life for some of these characters. The dude in “Shore leave”, who hates being apart from his baby. The woman selling the “Soldier’s things”. And this one.


Frank’s wild years, from “Swordfishtrombones”, 1983 (Island)

Coincidence perhaps that this selection begins exactly as the previous one did, with a track from his first album for Island, having left Asylum Records, with whom he shared seven years, and the first he produced himself. The interesting thing about this track is that it would form the title and theme for his ninth album, which would also use the name for a play Waits would write, and on which the album would be based. But that was all four years in the future, and it’s on this album that we first meet Frank.

He’s a settled guy, married but with no kids, living in the suburbs and hating it. He has a unique way of dealing with this: he burns down his house. Now, I am not in any way --- nor I believe was Waits --- advocating you burn down your house and drive off, but taken as a microcosm of Middle American society and the pressures of living up to being a resident of Suburbia, it’s darkly hilarious. Espcially the last line. Waits talks about his wife’s dog, some sort of chihuahua that is blind. At the end he grins “Never could stand that dog!”

The thing about this song is that you really don’t see it coming. Waits talks about Frank’s life --- ”They were so happy” --- how he’s doing well --- ”He sold used office furniture down San Fernando Road” --- though he does give us a little clue in the opening line, when he talks about Frank driving a nail through his wife’s forehead, but we’re meant I think to believe that’s metaphorical. The tone of the song remains exactly the same as Frank hits his crisis and burns down the house: Waits speaks the entire song in the same drab, bored voice someone would use who was reading uninteresting information from a cue card. You almost miss the transition. One minute he’s talking about a supposedly happily-married and well-adjusted man, the next he’s describing an arsonist who has obviously snapped.

It's not made clear in the song whether or not Frank’s wife and dog are in the house when it burns, but I tend to think they are. Acting completely normally, Frank watches the house burn --- ”All Halloween orange and chimney red” --- then heads off for his new life, putting on a top forty station as he disappears down the Hollywood Freeway.

”Frank settled down in the Valley, and he hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his
wife's forehead.

He sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road and assumed a $30,000 loan at 15 1/4 % and put a down payment on a little two bedroom place.

His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash; made good Bloody Marys, kept her mouth shut most of the time, had a little Chihuahua named Carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind.

They had a thoroughly modern kitchen; self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan.
They were so happy.

One night Frank was on his way home from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple of Mickey's Big Mouth’s.
Drank 'em in the car on his way to the Shell station; got a gallon of gas in a can.

Drove home, doused everything in the house: torched it.
Parked across the street laughing, watching it burn, all Halloween orange and chimney red.

And Frank put on a top forty station, got on the Hollywood Freeway and headed North.

Never could stand that dog.”



Childen’s story, from “Orphans: brawlers, bawlers and bastards”, 2006 (ANTI-)

Based on German playwright Georg Buchner’s play “Woyzeck”, about which I admit I know nothing, this is a tiny little song, not even two minutes long, and again it’s one on which Waits speaks the vocal rather than sings. It’s meant to be a lullaby, but remember this is Waits, so expect it to be dark and not have a happy ending. You can also just about picture him perched on the edge of his grandson, godson or friend’s child’s bed, turning away and trying to dispel the smoke from his cigar while also attempting to get his whiskey cough under control as he relates this “charming little tale” about a boy’s adventures in space.

To be honest, as I say I have no idea what “Woyzeck” is about, but a quick Wiki search tells me it’s about the “dehumanising effects of doctors”. What exactly that has to do with this nightmarish fairy tale is anyone’s guess, but it’s a story not exactly guaranteed to ensure sweet dreams for children that’s for sure. Recommend you do not tell it to your kids, unless you want them to be sleeping in with you tonight again!

A note on the album (one day I must review this): it’s a three-disc, three-hour compilation of some rare and unfinished and unused songs Waits wrote over the years, as he says himself: “ A lot of songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner, about 60 tunes that we collected. Some are from films, some from compilations. Some is stuff that didn't fit on a record, things I recorded in the garage with kids. Oddball things, orphaned tunes”

”Once upon a time there was a poor child, with no father and no mother,
And everything was dead
And no one was left in the whole world;
Everything was dead.

And the child went on a search, day and night;
And since nobody was left on the Earth,
He wanted to go up into the Heavens
And the Moon was looking at him so friendly.
And when he finally got to the Moon,
the Moon was a piece of rotten wood.

And then he went to the Sun.
And when he got there, the Sun was a wilted sunflower.
And when he got to the stars, they were little golden flies.
Stuck up there, like the shrike sticks 'em on a blackthorn.

And when he wanted to go back, down to Earth,
the earth was an overturned piss pot.
And he was all alone, and he sat down and he cried.
And he is there till this day,
All alone.

Okay, there's your story!
Night-night!”


The piano has been drinking, from “Small change”, 1976 (Asylum)

To be able to play the piano is a real feat: I know, I’ve tried. And failed. But to be able to play the piano badly, deliberately? Well, that takes real talent. If you’ve never heard this song before you need to click the video above to see what I mean. Waits plays the piano as if he, and it, are drunk --- hitting bum notes, making the wrong key change, and so on --- which perfectly complements the lyric. That talks about a man who is so drunk he won’t admit he is, and blames it on everything else: the guy who says “why is this room spinning?” and doesn’t realise that it’s only for him that it moves. It’s hilarious, sad in its way, but total genius as ever.

He references things we all think when we’re drunk --- well, I don’t drink but I know the sort of thing: You can’t find your waitress with a geiger counter/ And she hates you and your friends/ And you just can’t get served without her” and those times when ”The spotlight looks like a prison break”. Everything is anthropomorphised, as he tells us the carpet needs a haircut, the telephone is out of cigarettes and his necktie is asleep. And of course at the end the plaintive cry ”The piano has been drinking … not me.” Pure, 100 percent, 24 carat genius.

”The piano has been drinking;
My necktie is asleep.
And the combo went back to New York,
The jukebox has to take a leak.
And the carpet needs a haircut,
And the spotlight looks like a prison break.
'Cause the telephone's out of cigarettes
And the balcony is on the make.

And the piano has been drinking.
The piano has been drinking.

And the menus are all freezing;
And the light man's blind in one eye
And he can't see out of the other.
And the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid
And he showed up with his mother.

And the piano has been drinking.
The piano has been drinking.

'Cause the bouncer is a sumo wrestler:
Cream puff Casper Milquetoast.
And the owner is a mental midget
With the I.Q. of a fencepost.

'Cause the piano has been drinking.
The piano has been drinking.

And you can't find your waitress
With a geiger counter
And she hates you and your friends
And you just can't get served without her.

And the box-office is drooling
And the bar stools are on fire.
And the newspapers were fooling
And the ash-trays have retired

'Cause the piano has been drinking.
The piano has been drinking.
The piano has been drinking.
Not me, not me, not me, not me, not me.”

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Note: In case anyone thinks (or cares) that I was talking though some other part of my anatomy rather than my mouth when I said I'd be shortening and simplifying my album reviews, that they wouldn't be as detailed and in-depth as they have been for the last three years, you should know that this, the last two entries and still a lot more have all been pre-written long even before I took my sabbatical, so this is "old stuff" I'm using up. Once I get to writing new reviews you will, over time, see a change in how I present them. But it may take a while, as I have a lot of stuff already written to get through.

A good while ago I had this idea, but I sort of shelved it as it seemed covered by the “Love/Hate” section. But now I find it’s relevant again, as this is an album I can’t balance against one I love, as I have only heard one, and that one has really shocked and disappointed me. So this then is where I shake my head, having listened to an album I had expected to enjoy and mutter



I first became aware of this album when an advertisement ran for it on television, and being a diehard Genesis fan the music alerted me. Finding it was an orchestral interpretation of some of the best Genesis songs --- and having already enjoyed The London Symphony Orchestra’s “We know what we like: the music of Genesis” --- I was excited and expected this to be a shoe-in. Surprisingly enough, after a lot of effort tracking it down online --- I’m cheap: I never pay full price for an album if I can avoid it, especially one I haven’t heard before, and in this instance I’m glad I stuck to that plan --- it remained on my computer for a long time, years really, and I only just listened to it a few nights ago when I was looking for something relaxing to drift off to and realised I had it, and had not yet listened to it.



The Genesis Suite --- Tolga Kashif --- 2010 (LMG)

I’ll admit it: I had no idea who this guy was when I saw the ad, and I didn’t much care. Seemed to me he (or she) was some possibly famous composer or conductor who had decided to set the music of Genesis to an orchestral backing, and that was good enough for me. Now I see he (it is a he) has also attempted the same thing with Queen (for which, inexplicably to me anyway, he won a Classical Brit Award nomination in 2003) and has written many successful scores for movies as well as worked with the famous Lesley Garrett. In 2002 he performed in front of Her Majesty (God bless ‘er!) The Queen, so I guess he can’t be all bad.

But this is.

The problem with it lies in his interpretations of the music. They just don’t work, to the point that when listening I found it difficult to even recognise most of the original songs. They’re transformed and elaborated on to the extent that they become not quite parodies of themselves but certainly sound nothing like they should. I’ll go through it in detail shortly. The other problem is the length of the songs. “Mad man moon”, the longest he attempts here, is just over seven minutes on the original album “A trick of the tail”. Kashif extends it to over seventeen! “Fading lights” is a respectable ten minutes and he stretches that to twelve, okay, then a medley of “Blood on the rooftops” and “Undertow”, again totalling about nine, comes out at thirteen almost. This in itself would not be so bad, but it’s the way in which the songs are extended that causes the problem, and the confusion.

You could say these are more “fantasias” based on the songs, and maybe that would be true: Kashif certainly wanders repeatedly off the beaten path down roads which seem to have nothing to do with the original melody, and explores avenues that perhaps open up the songs. But the thing is, I want to hear the music I know: I understand it won’t sound exactly the same --- I probably wouldn’t want to hear it if it did --- but I want to at least be able to close my eyes and say “That’s Ripples” or whatever, not “What the hell is that?” which is more often than not what I found myself asking myself as this album wound seemingly interminably on.

So to the meat of the matter then: the actual music. We’re supposed to start off with a medley from “Invisible touch”, comprising “Land of confusion” and “Tonight, tonight, tonight”, but I just don’t hear it. There’s a sort of choral almost lament to open with a lot of percussion but no real melody. The speed is totally wrong for “Land of confusion”, which we all know as it was a hit single, and very quickly we’re into “Tonight, tonight, tonight”, or at least a version of it. I hear some keyboard arpeggios from the tune, but the general overall melody that we started with continues as we move into the third minute of the seven and a half it runs for. I’ve lost all recognition of the song --- either one --- now, other than the odd riff. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a nice piece, and if it was an original I’d be praising it. But as a supposed version of the two Genesis songs it’s just not there. I don’t get it, and this is a feeling that will repeat as I listen to the rest of the album. Not in all tracks admittedly: some are almost recognisable. But they’re in the small minority.

Now we’re into a soft strings section, which is nice, and I think I hear a snippet of part of the melody of “Land of confusion”, but it’s so incidental it’s hardly worth remarking upon. Near the sixth minute I had hopes we might be kicking into it as the music builds to something of a crescendo, but no: it’s more of the same and it ends as badly and mysteriously as it began. Honestly, play that for any Genesis fan and ask them what song, or songs, were being played and I doubt anyone would be able to guess. A loose interpretation, to say the very least. One of my very favourite Genesis tracks is up next, from the 1976 album “A trick of the tail”, but again it starts slowly and with little resemblance to the song it’s supposed to be emulating, and it’s nearly two minutes in before I even recognise “Ripples”, almost by accident. It’s a nice piano intro, but I don’t hear the melody anywhere until we’re heading into the second minute when it makes itself somewhat apparent.

The chorus then is something I can recognise, nice oboe or something with the piano sprinkled over it like fine fairy-dust, but then the strings section take the tune again and it goes off on something of a tangent. I know this song very well indeed, and it does not go like this at all. It’s almost as if Kashif created a mini-symphony and threw it in there where it does not belong. I mean, it sounds nice, there’s no doubting that. But it confuses the heck out of me until we’re almost at the fourth minute, and this incidentally but importantly is the chorus again, which seems to be the only part of the song making itself known to me. Now I know that there’s an extended instrumental section in the original, played by Tony Banks on the piano, and it’s one of the best parts of the song, very effective and evocative. Here again I lose the tune, it briefly shows itself with a blast of brass then disappears, like the very ripples in the lake about which the song was written, and it’s almost the seventh minute before anything recognisable comes through and it’s --- you guessed it --- the chorus again.

“Ripples” is extended by almost two minutes on the original, and that’s not too bad, but the worst is to come, and from the same album “Mad man moon” takes overstretching to new heights, or lows in this case. As I mentioned, a song that initially ran for just over seven and a half minutes is more than doubled, clocking in at a frankly ridiculous and unnecessary sixteen minutes and forty-one seconds! And it’s not just the length that’s at issue here. Whereas the original song opens with a flutey line and then goes into a piano melody, here we have violins, oboes, cellos and more which run for more than two minutes before any semblance of the original song’s melody can be heard. Up to then (and after it) it’s like the soundtrack to some Sinbad movie or something, very eastern, very mysterious, and very much nothing like the song.

Coming up to the fourth minute it settles somewhat into the original melody courtesy of some very nice cello and violin work, then big pounding percussion takes it off onto another track entirely --- well, the song is only seven minutes and change, so he has to extend it somehow, doesn’t he? But does he? Why not leave it as it was, or maybe add a minute or two as he did to the other songs here. But doubling it and then some? Where is the point? Just to crowbar in all the little touches and flourishes and embellishments he wants to put in? Wouldn’t the piece have been just as good --- better, in my opinion --- without them? But Kashif is on a roll now, so in desperation to extend, or justify his extension of the song, he returns to the opening lines and throws in some more improvised melodies. It all starts to get boring, as well as confusing, around minute seven, which is where the song should really be winding down to its natural conclusion. But no, we have another ten almost to go.

There’s a fast paced bit in the middle of the original that I’m still waiting to hear, as the violins and trumpets and woodwinds go into overdrive and we move into minute nine. Oh, here it comes. Not as fast as it should be, but come on: from here on in there should be one more verse and then the finale. But we’re looking at yet another six or seven minutes, almost the length of the entire song again before we finish up here. So now we have a rehash of the midsection, some extra stuff thrown in that has nothing to do with the song, a slowing down as we move into minute thirteen. Lovely violin work it has to be said, but so overdone and so unnecessary. I mean, I’m all for extending a good song and I love this one, but even for me this is overkill. Three or four seconds of total silence, just to eat up the time and then a big blast from the string section as I again completely fail to recognise this as any part of “Mad man moon” as I know it: it’s pretty much morphed now into Kashif’s own composition, which is nice undoubtedly, but not part of Genesis’s original song. It’s finally struggling, limping now towards its end and feels like it’s about ready to be put out of its misery, which finally, thankfully happens, and not even on the final riffs that end the original.

Their biggest and best-known hit single is up next, but if you think you’ll recognise the jaunty, poppy love song, you’ll find yourself saying as I did, “This isn’t anything like “”Follow you follow me!” Again, it’s stretched to breaking point. Remember, the original was a short, upbeat single which ran for just over four minutes; here it’s dragged out to almost seven. I can admittedly hear the chorus and it’s not bad, but there’s little else of the song I recognise here. It’s also too slow: I would have envisioned a fast, snappy string section with some light percussion and maybe trumpets or trombones jazzing it up as it’s supposed to be, but Kashif seems determined that every song here move at a snail’s pace, and it becomes very wearing. From the fifth minute to the end it’s just really a descending violin melody that could easily have been cut. Way too long.

And speaking of way too long, there’s a twelve-minute interpretation of “Fading lights”, the closing track on “We can’t dance” on the way. Admittedly, the original is a long song anyway, coming in at about ten minutes or so, but when I listened to this first I had absolutely no idea what I was hearing. If you had told me I had to identify the Genesis song being covered here or get a bullet in the brain, you’d be visiting my grave about now. What do you mean, you wouldn’t visit? Humph! Anyway there is no way to reconcile this with the song that closes Genesis’s penultimate album, another song I love; this just bears no resemblance to it, at least up to the third minute or so, where I can hear the vestiges of the original melody begin to float in on violin wings and it’s quite nice indeed.

But as ever Kashif loses the plot here and the tune goes off on another tangent, until by the fifth minute all relationship to the Genesis song has disappeared and we’re listening to an unfamiliar tune. It’s almost become pure musical expressionism by the time we reach the seventh, with the result that I’m losing hope of hearing the big instrumental passage that characterises the original and takes it almost to its close. No, it’s not there, or if it is I don’t hear it. And so we fade, rather appropriately, out and into yet another from “Trick of the tail”, the wonderful “Entangled”, which for some reason he decides to open with a slow piano passage, when the song moves at a much more sprightly, almost waltz pace than that. And I don’t recognise the melody, though at this point I am depressingly used to that.

Now this is a long song, and he’s only added a minute on to it, so points for that, but even so we’re now two minutes into it and I’m only now beginning to hear snatches --- snatches only, mind --- of the melody, with the piano still performing solo. It’s nice, and it’s a break from the violins and cellos, much as I like them, but I just wish it sounded more like the actual song. This could have been a real triumph, but as we move past the third minute there’s still only the very barest bones of the melody from the song I love so well. Really, as we get into the fifth I’m beginning to accept that the only real part of the original here is going to be that piano riff, although now that I’ve said that I can hear the proper melody begin to assert itself. We are, however, now close to the end, so is it too little too late? I fear so.

And we end on another twelve-minute extension, this time a second medley, to bookend the album with the opening suite. These are drawn from two different albums, unlike the opening set which came from the same one, with “Undertow” taken from the first album released by the stripped-down band in 1978 and “Blood on the rooftops” from 1976’s “Wind and wuthering”, another of my favourites. And we’re back to those choral vocals that opened the odd interpretation that started off the album. And so far I don’t recognise this. This is a form of singing I’m not that happy with: sort of chanting, like at a mass, but at least I recognise the music now. Well, partially. Sort of. Nice work by the violins and cellos as they follow, for once, the basic melody of at least “Undertow”.

Then within four minutes we’re into “Blood on the rooftops”, with an actual vocal this time. I’ve spoken about this before. If you’re doing an orchestral rendition of popular music I prefer not to hear any singing, even choirs. Especially choirs. Still, it has to be said that so far this has been the interpretation that most closely follows the original songs. I’m pretty certain though that we don’t need an eight-minute version of “Blood on the rooftops” when the original was just over five. And now we go off down another tributary, another branching road that takes us strange places with many a twist and turn: this part, from about minute six has no resemblance to the original song and is obviously just put in to embellish it. Okay, in fairness it actually returns to the chorus from “Undertow”, which is quite effective and works very well. I’ll definitely give it that. Mind you, it leaves little of “Blood on the rooftops” in the composition. And whether or not we need an over two-minute outro is to my mind debatable, but that said, the piece finishes well, though not enough to paper over the cracks in some, or most, of the tracks that have preceded it. Again, too little, far too late.

TRACKLISTING

1. Land of confusion/Tonight, tonight, tonight
2. Ripples
3. mad man moon
4. Follow you follow me
5. Fading lights
6. Entangled
7. Undertow/Blood on the rooftops

Let me just make one thing perfectly clear here: I am not in any way denigrating Tolga Kashif’s musical or compositional prowess. I know that making music, writing music, especially orchestral, is a rare talent and I am totally in awe of anyone who can do it, and do it well. And I readily admit that this is some of the most beautiful orchestral music I have heard in a long time. Were it Kashif’s own original music I would rate this album much higher and be recommending it to you. But that’s the problem: it’s not his music. Well, it is, but it’s not supposed to be, not really.

When any composer sets out to cover someone else’s work there is of course always an element of artistic licence that has to be allowed. Nobody wants to hear the originals played note for note. If you wanted that, why not just listen to the originals themselves? But in this case I believe Kashif takes that licence and runs far away over the hills, screaming “Catch me if you can!” He goes beyond interpreting, beyond embellishing the longtime work of one of the premier progressive rock bands of all time here, and strays into the territory of trying to rewrite it. I have no problem with someone putting their own slant on a cover version, but I want to at least be able to recognise the finished article. Here, so much of this music sounded nothing like the songs I have listened to and loved for over thirty years, and it was hard to think of this as an album of Genesis music reinterpeted by a musician so much as a new composition using the bare bones of Genesis music as its template.

Perhaps that’s what he intended, and perhaps that’s how this album is supposed to be approached, but when I see someone making an orchestral version of the music of one of my favourite --- of, indeed, my very favourite of all--- artistes, I expect to be able to recognise the tunes, and more often than not that was not the case here. For me, this was an exercise in overindulgence and perhaps arrogance, that the man thought he could improve on the music Banks, Rutherford, Hackett and Collins wrote over three decades ago, that he could do it better than them. I believe he also tackled the music of Queen, and that the surviving members of the band were very happy with the outcome. Perhaps then I am in the minority here.

An enjoyable album without question, but if Kashif attempts to take on the music of another band in the future, I just hope he keeps his compositional hands off any of my favourite artistes.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I'm sorry, you like the music, but you don't like it because of fuddy duddiness? I should think the fact that Genesis' music is apparently versatile enough that it can be warped so completely and still be relevant should be seen as a validation of their talent and not an attack on it. I highly doubt an artist would take the time an effort to make an album mocking Genesis anyway, so him being so intent on putting his own stamp on music that obviously sticks with him this much is in fact the ultimate sign of respect. I can understand being confused at first, and that affecting your enjoyment of it, but wouldn't it make more sense to listen to the album a few more times since your opinion of it is so obviously conflicted?

__________________