Evans The Death: Expect Delays

I came to Evans The Death after I discovered the fantastic Sledgehammer on an indie disco playlist, and wanting to hear more of the band, I decided to have a listen to their most recent album, Expect Delays.

This album is an evocative journey through the rain-soaked streets and platforms, electric-lit interiors, and damp-fogged window panes, presumably of Evans The Death's present day London. That being said, the album definitely conjures up memories of growing up in the late 1980s and, in case I'm showing my age, the 1990s. It is this masterful capturing of such an Autumnal mood makes this album so quintessentially British, and ultimately a success. Released in early 2015, it's just coming into its own for me as that familiar bite is coming into the air.

Like those massages where a small person is paid to walk up and down your back, I play this album to lightly pummel my brain, and it effects most agreeable results. Katherine Whitaker's rich vibrato voice is the delivery vector for the poignancy that weaves and threads through this album, both under its own steam in the slower and more measured passages, and with rest of the band "blowin' like a hurricane" (Sledgehammer, Bad Year) and driving the whole thing inexorably along, her vocal still has the power to cut through and soar above.

As I have more than hinted, Sledgehammer is my obsessive listen from this album. It's the tour-de-force for me both of the darkly honeyed vocals and the intricate yet powerful Mosses' guitar (that opening riff!). The guitar and bass on this track, as so often in the rest of the album, trick us with such unexpectedly contrary directions at times. On "it'll take your breath away" and "I'll be there to bring you down" I worry there will be a burn mark on my hard drive from rewinding the track to listen and re-listen to those phrases (+1 volume each time) - everything just builds up so beautifully, and the album's emotion boils just a little over the surface. If the words at the start of the second verse really do go, "I get hammered alone to pass the time", then I am delighted.

A contrast between light and dark was once cited to me as one of the contributing factors in producing effective music. This album has it in spades, from the rough and dirty intro to Terrified to the rhythmically fascinating Bad Year with its close guitar harmonies and delightfully messy conclusion. The title track Expect Delays captures the understated melancholy (this album does not feel sorry for itself, but feels nonetheless) and the the opening bars and voices that chatter behind speak to me of damp Monday mornings. I have always had an obsession with the extremes in the hours of daylight we experience in these northern climes, and they have undoubtedly touched this song, along with the entire album to which it gives its name.

Fundamentally though, having written all of this, I listen to this album because it makes me happy.

Duck Thieves: Act One

Prominent on my headphone playlist this week has been the newly released EP from Duck Thieves, Act One. This three-track hurricane lifts my house up by the foundations and dumps me down into a stomping marionette puppet show with Duck Thieves in the starring roles. They weave into their music the humour, energy and imagery of their highly entertaining live shows.

To kick us off, The Birds unleashes a chiaroscuro of chaos upon our unsuspecting ears, with black-and-white boardroom antics ("he's got stock options") ignited immediately into glorious technicolour (although not before the sky darkens) with the attack of a deadly swarm of birds in what I can only describe as a musical whumpf. Prokofiev would have been proud of their mean and punchy guitar riff had he been visited by a time travelling Duck Thief to suggest a new theme for Peter and the Wolf.

Popcorn Girl, particularly its delicately layered introductory passage dripping with minor expression, reminds me of the creative influences of The Sequins (a band to which of course some members of Duck Thieves formerly belonged). This song of improbable and unrequited love, "with protons and quarks so alike", reminds me that we are all, like Duck Thieves, creatures of energy. Justin's obsession with Brian May might indeed be that, but provides a true and faithful interpretation, as throughout the EP he injects real sparks of Queen-esque guitar, with a mastery of guitar effects that is difficult to match.

My favourite track is Drive. I have always been a fan of a good upbeat finale, and I am driven to transportations of joy by the refrain of "what about the jobless... they don't drive". I have to say that even without a knowledge of the "copy and paste concrete" street blocks, I am actually starting to care where Morrissey lives at. Particularly skilful in my mind is the call and answer of the backing vocals (i.e. "so young, and so alone..."). This is really accomplished musicianship, supremely rhythmically intelligent, and adds an epic quality to the track, and a grand statement though it may be, it is really in this track that I hear a true touch of Queen. The EP really ends on a high, and it was with a genuine and wide smile on my face that I finished the first, second and third listenings to this track.

I particularly enjoy Justin's rich lead vocal performance throughout Act One, with the ability to inject real humour to proceedings, while having an impressive range both in pitch and dynamics. Knowing something of the reputation of this band for impressive live shows, this is an important transition to recording which I think has worked extremely well.

Noisy Dirty City

Welcome to Noisy Dirty City (mark 2). I originally had this blog for various musings including musical ones, but it never quite had a purpose. Recently, I wanted somewhere to put some of my writings on music so I'm reclaiming the blog title for that! I make a bit of music, listen to plenty, but my trips out playing and to gigs are extremely few and far between compared to your typical musician, I would say. Living in the musical city of Sheffield, I also feel like a bit of a satellite of the Coventry music scene as I am fond of several bands and musical things going on there at the moment. I'm going to put up reviews and posts about stuff I've heard and liked, but not really be too strict about whether that is new releases or stuff that's just new to me.