Album Review by Mark Bayross
This is the Welsh band’s sixth album, and this time round they financed and produced it themselves. It is also the first since signing to Mantra, after their former label, Mercury, unceremoniously dumped them a mere two weeks after the release of their last album, GORKY 5.
This outing finds them in a mellow mood, as acoustic guitars jostle with strings and Euros Childs’ lost boy (or should I say ‘boyo’) vocals strain with heartache and soul. At times it is very beautiful, like the piano-drenched closing track THE HUMMING SONG, on occasions it is plain mad — check the yelping intro to POODLE ROCKIN’ for Gibby Haynes-esque lunacy.
I was reminded of Mercury Rev’s last album — it has a similar feeling of proud fragility to it— evoking long, empty roads to nowhere and travellers singing around the campfire at midnight. Despite its beauty, this is no epic: some of the 15 tracks last just over a minute, and none of them break the five minute mark. It remains to be seen how the album would sound were the songs to take you further than the snapshots on display here.
