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| Track list: 1. Mad Sense 2. Lies 3. A Dance to Half Death 4. Don't! 5. Not Yet 6. We Walk in the Room 7. BonBon 8. Grit and Determination 9. My Gift is Waiting 10. Next Year 11. Bottle of Anger/Lies (BBC Scotland Radio Session) 12. A Hurricane, a Thunderstorm (BBC Radio Scotland Session) 13. Love is a Fragile Thing (Sleazy version) 14. Learn to Love (2007 demo) 15. Bypass (2007 demo) 16. Transformers (2007 demo) 17. Dawn Raid (2009 demo with Benni Hemm Hemm) 18. Alexander and Angela (2009 demo) Running time: 69 minutes Released: 2010 |
I've written about how I came across The Second Hand Marching Band before. This has the look of a best-of and retrospective, including tracks I have elsewhere, but that's alright by me. Twee Scottish low-fidelity amateur charm is OK in my book.
It is a suitably low key starter for 10. Mad Sense's slow tempo, a lone voice, adding another. It's disarmingly charming. Yes, I was biasing myself towards this before I started, but there really is something comforting about the simplicity here. That said, I am happier for the bigger sound and a bit more life in Lies as that takes over, its intro more than half its length before the vocal joins.
I can't help but feel, though, that I should stop this listen after three tracks, because A Dance to Half Death is undoubtedly the summit. I have loved this track since the first time I heard it. There's some fragility in the voice that endears, whilst the main theme, the twiddling tunes behind the vocal and the pace all strike emotional chords (pun intended) in me. There is a rawness to it all, a heart laid bare, a pleading appeal. In some ways the song is amateurish, the voice almost fades away in places and it sounds like only an indie-effort could... a little rough around the edges. Yet the earnestness, the genuine intent and belief of the performers and the tones of their strings stir feelings in me, a sort of comfortable loneliness and longing. It is, I think, a masterpiece, albeit one most people will never hear or appreciate.
The sense that everything is slightly off-key can't be as easily brushed off on the more bombastic Don't!, and here the effect of everyone playing and singing together has more of a cacophony about it, and then we hit the first of the tracks on this album that I don't recognise. Not Yet jettisons the noise for a stripped back sound, a female main vocal, it reminds me more of Strike the Colours' less pop-y pieces in places with the intricate little strumming loops, though overall the similarities aren't that great. It builds nicely and I find myself enjoying it a lot.
Of course, my liking this should not be any surprise; The Second Hand Marching Band shares (shared?) some overlap in membership with eagleowl, a lot of their tunes exhibit that very clearly, and eagleowl are the best band no-one ever heard of and the group that I keep going back to when being alone all the time tips over into loneliness. The downside of that is that hearing those sounds when I wasn't feeling lonely (like just now) can tip me over into the very loneliness that I use these sounds to escape. Today is a calm day of not much between two days of hosting people for board games and in the aftermath of family Christmas. The quiet and peace are - or were - welcome, especially as I don't really feel like I have been off work for a week yet!
The album loses its way a bit in the middle. All pace slips from the tunes, and they strip back too far to be interesting. They retain a gentle charm, but it is a detached one, rather than an intimately engaging one.
The combination of Bottle of Anger/Lies brings back the energy. Yes, it is in part a repeat, and I could have sworn it was something I had elsewhere, and a quick search suggests that I axed it! Huh. Context matters - here this combo really worked to bring back something that was lacking as the mid-section drifted. There I found the raucousness abrasive. Odd. I am still not that enamoured of A Hurricane, A Thunderstorm though and I may axe that again (especially as I have other versions).
It amuses me that there is a sleazy version of, well, anything that would be advertised as such, but that is where we are with Love is a Fragile Thing... I can't hear anything immediately worthy of that term, so I guess it is a bit tongue in cheek (or I am tone-deaf). Then we are into a bunch of demos to finish off the offerings.
Learn to Love starts these off with the same trembling vocals that endeared A Dance to Half Death to me. Here there is less to back that up, but it is still plenty pleasant. Actually it may end up being these demos are the real reason to have this album... the search for where I had Bottle of Anger/Lies before laid open how Compendium is less a greatest hits and more the collected works. The first 10 tracks come from two EPs, 11 and 12 from the BBC sessions linked above. Happily thus far they are well worth having. The recording is a little harsher, louder, than perhaps would be ideal but the tone of the songs is right.
My attention wandered, and I find myself suddenly at the end of Transformers without consciously processing the bits in between - nice soft guitars, low key vocal and not a lot to do with the track name as far as I can tell...
Two to go, then; 10 more minutes.
I find my words are gone. My drive to type MIA. Suffice to say I really like Dawn Raid even though I cannot find the lines to explain why. The closing track I am less keen on. Musically its more of the same and OK, but the lyrics are mean-spirited in places. Not a good finish.
It is a suitably low key starter for 10. Mad Sense's slow tempo, a lone voice, adding another. It's disarmingly charming. Yes, I was biasing myself towards this before I started, but there really is something comforting about the simplicity here. That said, I am happier for the bigger sound and a bit more life in Lies as that takes over, its intro more than half its length before the vocal joins.
I can't help but feel, though, that I should stop this listen after three tracks, because A Dance to Half Death is undoubtedly the summit. I have loved this track since the first time I heard it. There's some fragility in the voice that endears, whilst the main theme, the twiddling tunes behind the vocal and the pace all strike emotional chords (pun intended) in me. There is a rawness to it all, a heart laid bare, a pleading appeal. In some ways the song is amateurish, the voice almost fades away in places and it sounds like only an indie-effort could... a little rough around the edges. Yet the earnestness, the genuine intent and belief of the performers and the tones of their strings stir feelings in me, a sort of comfortable loneliness and longing. It is, I think, a masterpiece, albeit one most people will never hear or appreciate.
The sense that everything is slightly off-key can't be as easily brushed off on the more bombastic Don't!, and here the effect of everyone playing and singing together has more of a cacophony about it, and then we hit the first of the tracks on this album that I don't recognise. Not Yet jettisons the noise for a stripped back sound, a female main vocal, it reminds me more of Strike the Colours' less pop-y pieces in places with the intricate little strumming loops, though overall the similarities aren't that great. It builds nicely and I find myself enjoying it a lot.
Of course, my liking this should not be any surprise; The Second Hand Marching Band shares (shared?) some overlap in membership with eagleowl, a lot of their tunes exhibit that very clearly, and eagleowl are the best band no-one ever heard of and the group that I keep going back to when being alone all the time tips over into loneliness. The downside of that is that hearing those sounds when I wasn't feeling lonely (like just now) can tip me over into the very loneliness that I use these sounds to escape. Today is a calm day of not much between two days of hosting people for board games and in the aftermath of family Christmas. The quiet and peace are - or were - welcome, especially as I don't really feel like I have been off work for a week yet!
The album loses its way a bit in the middle. All pace slips from the tunes, and they strip back too far to be interesting. They retain a gentle charm, but it is a detached one, rather than an intimately engaging one.
The combination of Bottle of Anger/Lies brings back the energy. Yes, it is in part a repeat, and I could have sworn it was something I had elsewhere, and a quick search suggests that I axed it! Huh. Context matters - here this combo really worked to bring back something that was lacking as the mid-section drifted. There I found the raucousness abrasive. Odd. I am still not that enamoured of A Hurricane, A Thunderstorm though and I may axe that again (especially as I have other versions).
It amuses me that there is a sleazy version of, well, anything that would be advertised as such, but that is where we are with Love is a Fragile Thing... I can't hear anything immediately worthy of that term, so I guess it is a bit tongue in cheek (or I am tone-deaf). Then we are into a bunch of demos to finish off the offerings.
Learn to Love starts these off with the same trembling vocals that endeared A Dance to Half Death to me. Here there is less to back that up, but it is still plenty pleasant. Actually it may end up being these demos are the real reason to have this album... the search for where I had Bottle of Anger/Lies before laid open how Compendium is less a greatest hits and more the collected works. The first 10 tracks come from two EPs, 11 and 12 from the BBC sessions linked above. Happily thus far they are well worth having. The recording is a little harsher, louder, than perhaps would be ideal but the tone of the songs is right.
My attention wandered, and I find myself suddenly at the end of Transformers without consciously processing the bits in between - nice soft guitars, low key vocal and not a lot to do with the track name as far as I can tell...
Two to go, then; 10 more minutes.
I find my words are gone. My drive to type MIA. Suffice to say I really like Dawn Raid even though I cannot find the lines to explain why. The closing track I am less keen on. Musically its more of the same and OK, but the lyrics are mean-spirited in places. Not a good finish.
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