alfie - crying at teatime
this album has somehow crept up on me and i'm not too sure why. having had no experience of the alfie sound previously i heard the recent single 'your own religion' and became interested. the gorgeous instrumentation, the gently fuzzed up guitars lead by that clean melody line just really hits home, beta band hanging with doves at a pleasant afternoon tea party. the song innocently invaded my dreamspace and amazingly has yet to become overexposed. a great track.
as it is, this highpoint kicks off the bands 4th (4th!) album due out on the regal imprint in august, and sets an expectation far too high for the next 40 or so minutes. they do equal this splendour in a couple of places, but unfortunately not enough to propel the album into the stratosphere. 'look at you' follows the single with a wonderful echoed slice of guitar noise (again all very delicately and beautifully done), backed by a big fat warm rolling bass line and rollicking piano groove, it's something that simon and garfunkel would have been proud to have made in their golden period. very special, and again incorporates a hug-your-best-mate type of feeling. warm and rosy glows all round so far. following with the albums lead track, synths do their far away retro space age thing, which is pushed out of the door once we get the to the show stopping 'ooh-whoo-oooooh' vocal backing and chunked up guitars.
damn, 3 tracks in and we heading for classic status, a little bit of athlete, a touch of beta band, topped off with ian browns cool, the sum of all this is making me want to desperately check the rest of the bands oeuvre. 'till the end' mellows the mood with masses of strings, and acoustic guitars and a totally supreme harmonious build up where they loop the main chorus phrase prior to drawing the song to it's naturally lovely conclusion. then we are dropped into the fuzzed up glory that is 'all too heavy now', which, even as i type this i have the chorus spinning around my head, the appeal is as totally perfect as it can be.
3.5 minutes of happy-sad fuzzed up indie perfection.
how come i have not come across this band before !?
but then things begin to drift. the next few songs all suffer from pulling back from the brink, no more of the effects, lots of sunday afternoon mellowness but lacking in the x-factor appeal that the opening 20 minutes has. 'applecart' drifts along nicely, as do 'colour and 'wizzo', there is nothing wrong with any of these tracks per se, but they all seem to have the same mid tempo feel, and so start to leave the listener's concentration drifting off as opposed to the jugular grip of the first half.
thankfully, before we reach the end, there is 'where did our loving go', the tempo is very laid back, the orchestration subtle, but when the vocal harmonies and 60's pop styled arrangements blend as they do, the heart melts in such a romantic way that all negativity is quickly cast aside allowing the innerglow to resume.
all of which brings the album to the final track, 'kitsune', where the sublime acoustically simple backing and off-kilter sonic tricks carefully redirect the listener back into the harsh realities of the modern world in a more calm state than 40 minutes previously, that is unless you rewind and hit start all over again and delay the impact.
i know i did - several times.
7 tracks of perfection. 3 that are pretty damn close. not a bad scorecard alfie.
thank you.