Innocents Belatedly Crunching Peppermints,
There will certainly be some fantastic Scottish albums released over 2009. Leading them is Checkmate Savage by The Phantom Band, a fantastic album on the Chemikal Underground label.
I’ve known of The Phantom Band since Throwing Bones was released as a single more than a year ago and I eagerly awaited follow-up work. The album doesn’t disappoint, in a world of over-egged synths and effects, the Phantom Band pitch their sound and incidence just right and blend them perfectly with the rest of your bog-standard stuff (guitars, bass, drums, etc). My stance on the bog-standard instruments is contentious, most probably to those who play them, and most fragile to those who use them well. I’m not a musician, those who learn classical instruments were always blatant to me at school, they’d be whisked away to a musical lesson whilst the rest of us had to endure the remainder of Home Economics or Modern Studies, but in many ways, I should respect the bog-standard instrument wielders more than I do because they quite discretely to me, not to their neighbours, had to learn by themselves at home.
The big songs on this album are The Howling and Folk Song Oblivion. The Howling opens the album, it’s a song that asks, “What’s it all about, Geoff? Is this it, Mary? Is this enough, Hilda?”, and comes to the conclusion that it’s probably up to somebody else to decide, and ultimately, that person can’t be trusted, not even someone called ‘Harold’ or even his Scandinavian friend, ‘Harald’. There’ll be a ghost on the day I die and it’ll probably ask the other members of the synthetic spectre choir in this song to keep things low-key. The song caters for everyone, it has the beats, the lyrics and the scary ghosts are quality.
I’ve often heard musicians interviewed who try to claim that their music is a kind of folk music, I’ve heard them say that punk music was folk music. The Strange Death of Liberal England have a song called ‘Modern Folk Song’, this begins gently before an explosion of towering guitars. I presume that Folk Song Oblivion is The Phantom Band’s view on the notion that folk music is a meaningless tag, in many ways, it does resemble the aforementioned song. I’m not a huge fan of heavy guitars but I do enjoy the bellowing riffs during the chanting verses of this song, the chants themselves could be seen as sending up the tales of travelling in many of the traditional folk songs, ‘I can’t see for the mountain silhouette’ and ‘I left home for an empty space’. The gentler verses exhibit a happy, undulating keyboard rhythm that carries one over grassy hill at the behest of a butterfly giving hot pursuit, on a summer day.
There are a few instrumental songs on the album; Crocodile is easily as good as modern work by Holy Fuck, David Holmes or Explosions in the Sky, however, I would have named it something else because it fails to teach, through rhythm and noise, the ways of the croc.
I’ve known of The Phantom Band since Throwing Bones was released as a single more than a year ago and I eagerly awaited follow-up work. The album doesn’t disappoint, in a world of over-egged synths and effects, the Phantom Band pitch their sound and incidence just right and blend them perfectly with the rest of your bog-standard stuff (guitars, bass, drums, etc). My stance on the bog-standard instruments is contentious, most probably to those who play them, and most fragile to those who use them well. I’m not a musician, those who learn classical instruments were always blatant to me at school, they’d be whisked away to a musical lesson whilst the rest of us had to endure the remainder of Home Economics or Modern Studies, but in many ways, I should respect the bog-standard instrument wielders more than I do because they quite discretely to me, not to their neighbours, had to learn by themselves at home.
The big songs on this album are The Howling and Folk Song Oblivion. The Howling opens the album, it’s a song that asks, “What’s it all about, Geoff? Is this it, Mary? Is this enough, Hilda?”, and comes to the conclusion that it’s probably up to somebody else to decide, and ultimately, that person can’t be trusted, not even someone called ‘Harold’ or even his Scandinavian friend, ‘Harald’. There’ll be a ghost on the day I die and it’ll probably ask the other members of the synthetic spectre choir in this song to keep things low-key. The song caters for everyone, it has the beats, the lyrics and the scary ghosts are quality.
I’ve often heard musicians interviewed who try to claim that their music is a kind of folk music, I’ve heard them say that punk music was folk music. The Strange Death of Liberal England have a song called ‘Modern Folk Song’, this begins gently before an explosion of towering guitars. I presume that Folk Song Oblivion is The Phantom Band’s view on the notion that folk music is a meaningless tag, in many ways, it does resemble the aforementioned song. I’m not a huge fan of heavy guitars but I do enjoy the bellowing riffs during the chanting verses of this song, the chants themselves could be seen as sending up the tales of travelling in many of the traditional folk songs, ‘I can’t see for the mountain silhouette’ and ‘I left home for an empty space’. The gentler verses exhibit a happy, undulating keyboard rhythm that carries one over grassy hill at the behest of a butterfly giving hot pursuit, on a summer day.
There are a few instrumental songs on the album; Crocodile is easily as good as modern work by Holy Fuck, David Holmes or Explosions in the Sky, however, I would have named it something else because it fails to teach, through rhythm and noise, the ways of the croc.
Island provides a stark contrast to the rest of the album, stripped of most of the keyboards and synths, The Phantom Band almost had to send out for some stools and matching suits to perform this near-ballad number, having said this, it sits well with the rest of the album and demonstrates the band’s ability to diversify and still sound rather good.
If I were to complain, I don’t remember Throwing Bones, the single, having the silly a capella segment in the middle. I’m thankful for the inclusion of Throwing Bones on the album, and grateful that normal service carries on either side of these inane voices.
The Phantom Band won’t thank me for this review. I enjoyed Checkmate Savage, I hope it’s not forgotten, such is the risk taken with a January/February release, when industry idiots compile end of year lists of best releases.
posted by Leif at 10:54 PM
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