Left with Pictures - In time (Organ Grinder Records)

Left with Pictures - In time (Organ Grinder Records)

If you're into chamber pop (and I am) you'll want to be checking out this English band's second album. It's a concept-ish album, with 12 songs, each one relating to a different month of the year. So, it opens with Constantly, a bittersweet meditation on the passing of time, driven along by a rolling piano figure and some great banjo playing. The Ides of March sounds strangely like Morrissey (only, if he'd been into The Zombies instead of the New York Dolls). August's Go Simon, Go! brilliantly finds common ground between a barbershop quartet and Thin Lizzy's Dancing in the Moonlight. And the at-odds-textures of bowed saw and jaunty brass on closing song Forgive me perfectly evoke the mixed feelings of an English December. Joining folk and classical music, via English music hall, this album just goes to show how broad a church pop music can be, if you go looking in the right places. And don't you just love it.

This light

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Best of 2014 - Part 4: Jazz/Chamber/Orchestral/Wonky/Ambient/Minimalist

Best of 2014 - Part 3: Psych/Krautrock/Punk/Blues/Glam/Tropical

Matthew Bourne - Montauk Variations (The Leaf Label)