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| Track list: 1. The Ribs of a Broken Umbrella 2. How Your Heart Is Wired 3. The Great Defector 4. Blow Ins 5. Amelia 6. A Better Band 7. Breastfed 8. Light Catches Your Face 9. One Stringed Harp 10. The Curtains Are Twitchin' Running time: 54 minutes Released: 2009 |
Random insert time. No - not another videogame post (though part of me wants to write something about Cities Skylines and how... I love the game by find myself happier to watch others play than play myself), but an album from a band that I cannot for the life of me recall why I picked it up. Apparently this was Bell X1's fourth album. I'd never heard of them or heard the other three, and haven't heard or looked for anything since. Something must have linked them to other artists I was enjoying back in early 2009, that's the only possible explanation. No idea what though, so this will be a discovery listen.
It starts with a pretty dull drum pattern and an odd synth tone. Breathy vocals over an Eighties-sounding backing is not really what I was expecting - I don't know what I did expect, but it wasn't this. It's the bad synths that give it a dated sound, and additional electronics appear as the song moves forwards, whilst staying very much the same. Then it goes all dramatic, introduces handclaps and a tinny piano. Hmm this is not really for me, though I do quite like the vocal, there's a charisma to it, a purpose that seems a bad fit with the cheesy backing and the oddball lyrics.
With the songs on average over 5 minutes in length this could end up feeling like a slog unless the output improves. How Your Heart is Wired is better. Whilst it has hints of 80s rock, it does a good job of communicating a sense of loneliness in the big city that I rather like. I have heard something similar to this recently but I can't place it... perhaps shades of Talking Heads, but that wouldn't be anything that I have listened to of late. In any case this is a much better song, until it sticks in a rut and I realise that I have actually been listening to A Better Band because like a doofus I forgot to switch off shuffle. Doh! The actual second track is a low key vocal over snappy synth-sounding drums and a self-indulgent guitar noodle in places. It has flashes of pleasantries and, yes - there is a distinct hint of David Byrne in the vocal to my (admittedly unfamiliar) ear - but it's not a step up really. I am left with the distinct impression that the group don't know how or when to close out their songs as much as anything else - there are great swathes of dead space in the latter half of the track that frankly add nothing to a recorded delivery. Live, such space might give room to work the crowd, allow highlights of individuals or so on, but on disc it just drags out the tune and causes me to lose what little interest I still had at the point the vocals disappeared.
Track 3 starts with sounds reminiscent of cartridge videogames, which if anything just strengthens the 80s rock feel. The 2009 date would put this at the early end of the 80s revival of recent times, I think, so if anything this release may have been ahead of the times as weird as that seems. That said, it is truly 80s - less homage or inspired by, more direct copy that could have come out of the decade itself and been sat on for 30 years. I have perhaps rather grown into the sound, as The Great Defector is a very enjoyable track - there's a life, a vibrancy, to the chorus that is pleasingly happy and twangy. It is mid afternoon on a Monday. I have the day off because I was up too late last night, having seen Bellowhead in Aylesbury - 25 minutes one way from me, then driving a friend back to Witney, 25 miles the other way. Good gig as ever - consolation prize for not having been quick enough (inside a couple of minutes) to get tickets for the farewell gig at Oxford Town Hall. I am feeling lethargic today, most of what I needed to do over the weekend completed on the actual weekend, and somehow lying in this morning left me empty and lacking energy. A bit like Blow Ins, which is never unpleasant and actually has a nice piano melody, but is so bland that even amongst longer tracks its 4 and an half minutes seem to last an eternity.
I rather like the staccato construction of Amelia's main theme and the cadence of the verse but it is rather too sparse for me to want just shy of 7 minutes of it. I am really hoping that there is a change up somewhere in here to make it worthy of the length, but I won't hold my breath. It's a shame because the duration aside I like pretty much everything else about the track - the vocal is good and engaging (consistently the best part of Bell X1's repertoire on the evidence of half a disc), the backing that swells and falls away behind the main theme is sparkles in a night sky pretty, and appropriate. But the song is done at about 4 and a half minutes. Why do we need 2 and a half more of un-innovative repetition?
Speaking of repetition, I think I've heard this before... yep, back to A Better Band. I don't mind listening to the first 3 minutes of the track a second time because it really works, and could have come straight from an 80s movie soundtrack. However about half way through it devolves to boring instrumental. This is the point that I checked how long the song had to run, to realise I was listening to the wrong track earlier in the disc and, alas, the answer is another 3 minutes. Crappy guitar masturbation is not what I signed up for, and when an awful wailing is added to it I despair: end your damn songs within a minute of running out of words and your output could be so much better! I might even say you would be a better band.
The next track is dull, the vocal muted and less distinctive, the guitars much rockier and more generic for it. So bland I have nothing to offer, and I find myself reading up on Talking Heads on Wikipedia instead; bad habit but it is hard to stop the mind wandering sometimes. All sense of pace is bled out of the album now. A slow piano melody replaces the guitars of nothingness and in a different context I might enjoy this song more but here and now... it does nothing to make me love it after the previous track disengaged me from the disc quite thoroughly. The vocal at least has some character again, but not enough to elevate a featureless song and melody into anything worthwhile.
There are some really dubious lyrics in the mix here too. One Stringed Harp's title line is applied to someone fiddling with their underwear... its really not very clever or interesting, a bit like the music that goes with it. I see flashes over the course of the disc that I like, but as a whole it all falls a bit flat, overrunning, taking their eye off the ball and ultimately delivering an air shot rather than a screamer into the top corner. Torturous football analogy aside, I am now into the final track and the other sin seems to be that the second half of the album loses all energy. Breastfed - the loud bland guitar rock - aside the mood has definitely been on a downswing and what that achieves is simply nullifying the best bits of the singer's style and replacing the 80s vibe I got from the early tracks with a tired and tiring downbeat direction. Couple that with songs dragging on past their prime and, well, the album as a whole is a massive disappointment. I do very much like The Great Defector though, so not a complete and utter wash out.
It starts with a pretty dull drum pattern and an odd synth tone. Breathy vocals over an Eighties-sounding backing is not really what I was expecting - I don't know what I did expect, but it wasn't this. It's the bad synths that give it a dated sound, and additional electronics appear as the song moves forwards, whilst staying very much the same. Then it goes all dramatic, introduces handclaps and a tinny piano. Hmm this is not really for me, though I do quite like the vocal, there's a charisma to it, a purpose that seems a bad fit with the cheesy backing and the oddball lyrics.
With the songs on average over 5 minutes in length this could end up feeling like a slog unless the output improves. How Your Heart is Wired is better. Whilst it has hints of 80s rock, it does a good job of communicating a sense of loneliness in the big city that I rather like. I have heard something similar to this recently but I can't place it... perhaps shades of Talking Heads, but that wouldn't be anything that I have listened to of late. In any case this is a much better song, until it sticks in a rut and I realise that I have actually been listening to A Better Band because like a doofus I forgot to switch off shuffle. Doh! The actual second track is a low key vocal over snappy synth-sounding drums and a self-indulgent guitar noodle in places. It has flashes of pleasantries and, yes - there is a distinct hint of David Byrne in the vocal to my (admittedly unfamiliar) ear - but it's not a step up really. I am left with the distinct impression that the group don't know how or when to close out their songs as much as anything else - there are great swathes of dead space in the latter half of the track that frankly add nothing to a recorded delivery. Live, such space might give room to work the crowd, allow highlights of individuals or so on, but on disc it just drags out the tune and causes me to lose what little interest I still had at the point the vocals disappeared.
Track 3 starts with sounds reminiscent of cartridge videogames, which if anything just strengthens the 80s rock feel. The 2009 date would put this at the early end of the 80s revival of recent times, I think, so if anything this release may have been ahead of the times as weird as that seems. That said, it is truly 80s - less homage or inspired by, more direct copy that could have come out of the decade itself and been sat on for 30 years. I have perhaps rather grown into the sound, as The Great Defector is a very enjoyable track - there's a life, a vibrancy, to the chorus that is pleasingly happy and twangy. It is mid afternoon on a Monday. I have the day off because I was up too late last night, having seen Bellowhead in Aylesbury - 25 minutes one way from me, then driving a friend back to Witney, 25 miles the other way. Good gig as ever - consolation prize for not having been quick enough (inside a couple of minutes) to get tickets for the farewell gig at Oxford Town Hall. I am feeling lethargic today, most of what I needed to do over the weekend completed on the actual weekend, and somehow lying in this morning left me empty and lacking energy. A bit like Blow Ins, which is never unpleasant and actually has a nice piano melody, but is so bland that even amongst longer tracks its 4 and an half minutes seem to last an eternity.
I rather like the staccato construction of Amelia's main theme and the cadence of the verse but it is rather too sparse for me to want just shy of 7 minutes of it. I am really hoping that there is a change up somewhere in here to make it worthy of the length, but I won't hold my breath. It's a shame because the duration aside I like pretty much everything else about the track - the vocal is good and engaging (consistently the best part of Bell X1's repertoire on the evidence of half a disc), the backing that swells and falls away behind the main theme is sparkles in a night sky pretty, and appropriate. But the song is done at about 4 and a half minutes. Why do we need 2 and a half more of un-innovative repetition?
Speaking of repetition, I think I've heard this before... yep, back to A Better Band. I don't mind listening to the first 3 minutes of the track a second time because it really works, and could have come straight from an 80s movie soundtrack. However about half way through it devolves to boring instrumental. This is the point that I checked how long the song had to run, to realise I was listening to the wrong track earlier in the disc and, alas, the answer is another 3 minutes. Crappy guitar masturbation is not what I signed up for, and when an awful wailing is added to it I despair: end your damn songs within a minute of running out of words and your output could be so much better! I might even say you would be a better band.
The next track is dull, the vocal muted and less distinctive, the guitars much rockier and more generic for it. So bland I have nothing to offer, and I find myself reading up on Talking Heads on Wikipedia instead; bad habit but it is hard to stop the mind wandering sometimes. All sense of pace is bled out of the album now. A slow piano melody replaces the guitars of nothingness and in a different context I might enjoy this song more but here and now... it does nothing to make me love it after the previous track disengaged me from the disc quite thoroughly. The vocal at least has some character again, but not enough to elevate a featureless song and melody into anything worthwhile.
There are some really dubious lyrics in the mix here too. One Stringed Harp's title line is applied to someone fiddling with their underwear... its really not very clever or interesting, a bit like the music that goes with it. I see flashes over the course of the disc that I like, but as a whole it all falls a bit flat, overrunning, taking their eye off the ball and ultimately delivering an air shot rather than a screamer into the top corner. Torturous football analogy aside, I am now into the final track and the other sin seems to be that the second half of the album loses all energy. Breastfed - the loud bland guitar rock - aside the mood has definitely been on a downswing and what that achieves is simply nullifying the best bits of the singer's style and replacing the 80s vibe I got from the early tracks with a tired and tiring downbeat direction. Couple that with songs dragging on past their prime and, well, the album as a whole is a massive disappointment. I do very much like The Great Defector though, so not a complete and utter wash out.
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