Geneva
Further

Fog: Today I revisit Geneva. Two albums released: "Further" (1997) and "Weather Underground" (2000). The first was praised by critics during a full-blown brit-pop craze; the English press ranked it among the ten best debut albums of 1997; NME voted "Tranquillizer" single of the year. The second, after three years of anticipation, disappointed. The curtain falls. Geneva, quietly, disband, and that’s it: lost tracks.

It might be time to put a stone over this Scottish band that shone for a very short period, was sought after by Suede and Bluetones, gave up after a not-at-all-bad album, produced recently a little successful and striking clone (the Delays), and which no one (?) remembers anymore. It might indeed be time. If it weren’t, damn it, that this album, picked up again after nearly a decade, impresses. Brit-pop, yes, but maybe no. And if yes, played out in an intimate and reserved style, closer to Radiohead’s "The Bends" and especially early Suede.

The atmosphere of the album is well represented by its beautiful cover: it’s a foggy, chilled, twilight melodic rock. The guitars mostly proceed through arpeggios: rarely pushing forward. Some keyboards fill in the gaps, but always behind the fog of guitars, never piercing it. One thing alone, like that bare tree, stands out, and it’s the (magnificent) voice of Andrew Montgomery. How I wish I could hear it again, this voice, only god knows. And instead, it remains buried in these pieces of winter, of cold ground covered in frost, warmed in vain by its hermaphroditic tone: a vast tone, capable of finding unknown notes, exploring the backdrop of misty instruments, able to bring to the forefront dark and sharp melodies, which pierce the outline of the songs tracing almost gothic lines. Listen to "Worry Beads", a track that could easily have come from early Radiohead: a muffled, dim sound, with guitars that are (here) full and rich, but at times fall silent and make way for a bare aridity, which Montgomery’s voice fills with halos, like blowing on a window pane. "Tranquillizer" is the track that gave Geneva that touch of fame: the arching keyboards support the guitars, the melody is delightful, resulting in a sumptuous piece.

The tempos are never high. These are mostly mid-tempo songs, almost all notable (among others "Temporary Wings", "Best Regrets", "No-one speaks"); there are no ballads, because the slow songs counterbalance with more insistent guitars and minor chords, mainly preferring a dark and blurred atmosphere over sweetness and warmth (which is not missing: pleasant "Fall Apart Button"). The closing, in particular ("In the Years Remaining"), is a long litany, with a deeply desolate and chilling text, with Montgomery’s voice effected, and a crescendo tail, which let out the desperate enumeration of the seasons to come with which the song closes (seasons significantly limited to two: "Autumn Winter Autumn Winter"). In short, it’s pop-rock, with regular structures, choruses in their place, without any exaggeration, but with a personal touch that makes it distinguishable from all the thousand possible derivations. Like that bare tree, silhouetted in the mist.

As at the end of films based on a true story, I should end with a bit of cold chronicle: today Montgomery, after forming and disbanding a US-based group called Amityville, sings in a duo named St Famous; two members formed 69CORP; the other members (probably) started some other locally known band and get drunk every night on the wooden tables of smoky provincial Scottish pubs; this album remains in some scattered copies in the dusty warehouses of Nude; the name Geneva evokes nothing more than a (foggy?) Swiss city located near a lake.

It’s clear that it’s not a story with a happy ending, and it brings a bit of sadness: fortunately, every now and then, maybe in winter, I can revisit "Further" and imagine, in the fog, a different story.