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Rating:
Slow, dreamy songs with a taste for words. They could be the Tindersticks.
Intimate songs, with strings and brass in the background.
The title track is a soft spleen, dragged out, which degenerates into a cacophony of brass towards the end.
With each listen, one wonders what they are doing. And the taste for the dark side, for things that ended badly. Like in the records of Tindersticks or Arab Strap, in some way, it is a cathartic experience; the events recounted are past, we lick our wounds, but we are alive.
Songs of calm resignation. And the attention to detail, as in the wonderful video of the title track, in a puppet theater, with the real faces of Elbow mounted too large on the puppets. That play.
"Oh you had to ask didn't you. Oh you had to know".
The other tracks are at times spectral; on initial listens, Guy Garvey's voice sounds like Peter Gabriel, but the more you listen, the more you discover his identity.
Rough songs, in lyrics and sounds, with strange melodies. "Can't Stop" could be a Radiohead song with vocal parts climbing against chunky guitars à la Velvet Underground.
A great debut nonetheless, especially for the immense "Asleep in the Back".
Note: some versions of the album do not have the title track and "Can't Stop". No one knows why.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Red (05:11)
Come as you are, sweetheart
Come as you are
You know you've got nothing to prove
I'll put you to bed you can let it all go
You've been playing too rough lately
You burn too bright
You live too fast
This can't go on too long
You're a tragedy starting to happen
Just as you are, perfect
Just as you are
I'll give you the time you deserve
Don't make those promises
Don't tell me again
That dust is gonna settle your nerves
You burn too bright
You live too fast
This can't go on too long
You're a tragedy starting to happen
You burn too bright
You live too fast
This can't go on too long
You're a tragedy starting to happen
03 Little Beast (04:15)
The whole towns slippin down a hill.
Like the spine of something dead.
Slide in shadow cobble-creep.
Burn your mark and leave.
The trench conventions yellow eyes
Follow her the local flower
The girls a priest (to me at least)
Since baptism peroxide.
And fear is not respect. Correct.
But it's the best you're gonna get
Sharp blow to the bridge of the nose
Sharp blow and anything goes.
04 Powder Blue (04:30)
Your eyes are just like black spiders
Your hair and dress in ribbons. Babycakes
In despair or incoherent. Nothing in between
China white, my bride tonight
Smiling on the tiles
Bring that minute back
We never get so close as when the sunward flight begins
I share it all with you
Powder blue
Stumble through the crowds together
They're trying to ignore us. That's o.k.
I'm proud to be the one you hold when the shakes begin
Sallow skinned, starry eyed, blessed
In our sin
Bring that minute back
We never get so close to death
Makes you so alive
I share it all with you
Powder blue
05 Bitten by the Tailfly (06:18)
You're a girl in this vicinity
I'm a dog without a collar on
This cattle-market cabaret
Is the Sabbath every Saturday
I'm full of wit and chivalry
Until you've given in to me
I'm a dog without a collar on
You're a girl in this vicinity
Bitten by the tail-fly
Too many times to change
It's a silent taxi ride away
But it's everything to get you there
You'll know when you are bitten-shy
But still you will return my stare
From a crush of blushing brides-to-be
You barely have a blossom on
Your eyes betray your diaries
You're a girl in this vicinity
Bitten by the tail-fly
Too many times to change
I'll take you home
Get you on your own
06 Newborn (07:36)
I'll be the corpse in your bathtub
Useless
I'll be as deaf as a post
If you hold me like a newborn
Whisper what you feel
My badly strung declaration
To You
You'll spend the end of your days
Gently smiling like a newborn
Love not by degrees
Press your lips
To my eyes
Taste my tears
On your tongue,
Pull the blinds
Play our song
Nothings changed
Nothing could be wrong.
Scream in the night
Kick and skrike
Like a newborn
Holding me shaking
Awake in the dark
All of these promises
Kept and unbroken
Tracing the scars
Tracing the scars
Even and cold
As we both become older.
Your arms bound about me
The hush in your voice.
The warmth of your fingers
Entwined around mine
In the eve of our lives
Never a choice.
07 Don't Mix Your Drinks (03:16)
Don't mix your drinks
Don't mix with him
It will kill you one day
Good advice, sound advice
Why can't you be
Like him, like me
Look what you could achieve
I'm coming cap in hand
Begging you to listen
Something draws me in
And I just can't christen it
Just can't christen it
Don't mix your drinks
Don't mix with him
It will kill you one day
Good advice, sound advice
You need to be
Like this, like me
Look what you could achieve
I'm coming cap in hand
Begging you to listen
Something draws me in
And I just can't christen it
Just can't christen it
08 Presuming Ed (Rest Easy) (05:26)
My brother fear is only natural
You need to chill your fucking bones
Lay her down, drink this ...
while you can
whisper rest easy
there's a belly full of life
watch her she's dreaming
of a belly full of life
right there on the pillow
this is why we are here
rest easy
You will feel Christ-like
When it's breathing in and out
Right there on the pillow
This is why we are here
Rest easy
This is why we are here
This is why we are here
Rest easy
09 Coming Second (04:59)
Found a hole and slipped on through
Kissed the stone and learnt the lines
Jumped the cue all the time forgetting you
Best dishevelled lover 3yrs running
Coming second to
A picket fence white 9-5 whos
Just alive
Beyond repair, there is nothing to say
Save some fading regrets
Yet I can't be without this
I want you to be around.
Spit-shone lies, juggled debts
Planted flags and made regrets.
Muddled through all the time
Forgetting you
Cut your teeth and breezed on to
another brothers fickle ways
So why amazed when it don't
Come/turn out your way
10 Scattered Black and Whites (05:32)
Been climbing trees I've skinned my knees
My hands are black the sun is going down
She scruffs my hair in the kitchen steam
She's listening to the dream I weaved today
Crosswords through the bathroom door
While someone sings the theme-tune to the news
And my sister buzzes through the room leaving perfume in the air
And that's what triggered this.
I come back here from time to time
I shelter here some days.
A high-back chair. He sits and stares
A thousand yards and whistles
Marching-band (Boom-ching)
Kneeling by and speaking up
He reaches out and I take a
Massive hand. Disjointed tales
That flit between short trousers
And a full dress uniform
And he talks of people ten years
Gone like I've known them all my life
Like scattered black 'n' whitesâ ¦.
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By sonic80
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that these guys, while having their own identity, have absorbed and metabolized the lessons of Radiohead.
The album’s highest point is reached with 'Powder Blue': an absolute masterpiece to be included among the best tracks of the 2000s.
