British band/man criminally under-appreciated in the States. For a smidgen of background, click this early post on the previous release from late 2009. Since that was written before I figured out how to embed videos, allow a stroll down Memory Lane to 1988...
Credited guests on this album, "From Langley Park To Memphis," include Thomas Dolby, Stevie Wonder, Pete Townshend, Lenny Castro & Andrae Crouch. Right...and you never heard of it. The drummer for the band was Neil Conti, and maybe you've heard his input on other records by Alison Moyet, Annie Lennox, Deep Forest & James Blunt. Anyhoo, the band only broke the US Top 200 (barely @ 180) with one album while scoring three UK Top 10's (four if you count the Best Of) and landing twenty different songs on the UK Singles charts. So what's up with that Yanks?!
Well, I guess it helps if the records are released domestically, and like the last one, this is import-only, too. Not that I looked extremely hard, but I didn't even see a paid download for it, either. It's criminal, I tell ya! This is not an album of songs, this is forty minutes of shimmering, pristine vignettes set to music. Case in point, the opening track...
That damn siren is so real that I had passengers in the car turning to look for it. Not the Best Video In The World (get it?) but the song is vintage Paddy McAloon, who alone now is responsible for everything on this album. Absolutely amazing when you realize the man has a detached retina and tinnitus worse than mine. One of the tracks, I swear, had Dennis DeYoung on it but nope, just Paddy. Vignette titles include "Grief Built The Taj Mahal," "The Old Magician," "Devil Came A Calling" and "The Songs Of Danny Galway," which was written in tribute to Jimmy Webb, the Hall of Fame songwriter who authored multiple hits by Glen Campbell (Galveston, ...Phoenix, Wichita...), a favorite of mine by The Brooklyn Bridge called "The Worst That Could Happen," and the oft-covered classic "MacArthur Park." Here is a fan video with the lyrics to the song in the comment section if you want to go to YouTube proper to see it...
As I finished up my research, I found hints that this may be released in the States at the end of April but can't confirm it through the label, which will remain nameless for now, but it's not a chump start-up by any stretch of the imagination. Could it be that I've posted the first American-based "review" six weeks before it drops?
I hope so...
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