Lambchop - Mr. M (2012)

1) If Not I'll Just Die; 2) 2B2; 3) Gone Tomorrow; 4) Mr. Met; 5) Gar; 6) Nice Without Mercy; 7) Buttons; 8) The Good Life (Is Wasted); 9) Kind Of; 10) Betty's Overture; 11) Never My Love

Suave and richly orchestrated; it's the Lambchop you know and love, but with more strings.

Key tracks: "If Not I'll Just Die", "2B2", "Gone Tomorrow"

To this day I think the perfect incapsulation of Lambchop is the opening of "If Not I'll Just Die", with a lush string serenade straight out of vintage Hollywood opening way to Kurt Wagner's gentle grunt, bluntly uttering "don't know what the fuck they're talking about" like he's in the completely wrong song. My theory with Lambchop is that out of the pre-synth works, your favourite is always going to be the one that you hear first. Lambchop have a very specific sound, dry humour and bored-still Sundays mingling with suave americana, and they've kept it going from album to album with little variation (before the synthesizer ones starting from 2016's FLOTUS but this disclaimer is going to get really clunky really quickly so that's the last time I'll raise it). That doesn't mean no variation, but that it's all rather subtle, with particular aspects highlighted and de-emphasised in turn in a way that it takes a fan who has heard all those albums to hear the differences. It makes Lambchop consistent enough that whoever hears one of their albums and likes its sound is bound to like a lot of the others too - but the particular balance of elements of that first experience will be the most familiar balance you'll come to always favour. Mr. M was my first Lambchop album, and it's also my favourite.

Mr. M's particular take on the Lambchop sound revolves around its string sections. String ensembles aren't new territory for the oft-expanded lineup of Lambchop and they appear throughout the band's discography, but not quite like this. The strings on Mr. M are like a duet partner for Kurt Wagner, trading their own lines with his lyrics, moving about without established rotas or rigid structures they'd need to follow. The songs on Mr. M started out as sparsely arranged vessels with a lot of space for other instruments to claim their spot in, before it was agreed for the strings to become the lead actor intentionally. The idea was to replicate old school Hollywood crooner ballad strings ("psycho-Sinatra" as they called it), inspired by how they took the lead from other band instruments and often played around in little movements of their own - and despite the heavily layered production work that generally devotes attention to all the elements no matter how small, it's the strings in particular you'll notice throughout the album. Lambchop have always proudly scruffed their shirt collars and added a little intentional ugliness over their beautiful songs, but Mr. M is elegant and polite throughout and by nature, floating on its string ensembles.

Beyond that, Mr. M keeps to the faithful formula: Wagner's half-abstract slice-of-life stories, muttered calmly over a series of low-to-mid tempo plodders, in the best possible way you can use 'plodder' as a descriptor. They are uniformly lovely, cosy as a hot cup of coffee on a cold autumn day and lush to listen to thanks to the sweet production. Part and parcel with Lambchop albums is that the songs tend to slightly bleed into one another at some point or another, but the eleven tracks of Mr. M are all quite independently strong; this includes the two instrumentals which let the orchestrations and production blossom as the unrestricted leads (particularly on the lovely lounge-orchestral "Gar"). The album regularly gives itself a little shake to avoid repeating the same tricks the same way and there’s regular strong points across the tracklist, but the opening trio in particular is quite possibly the best sequence of tracks in Lambchop history. The sweet and pastoral "If Not I'll Just Die", the dream-like melancholy of "2B2" and the gently urgent "Gone Tomorrow", which moves from one of Wagner's best chorus melodies to a long outro where the song dismantles and reconstructs itself back into place with gorgeous studio wizardry - all not just album highlights, but career highlights. The plaintive and pretty title track and the aforementioned "Gar" pick up well from there too, and lead onto the more restful (apart from the breezy "The Good Life") latter half. Pretty much everything stands out - a rarity for a Lambchop album, even as a fan.

One thing that struck me when going through interviews around the album is that Wagner seemed to be close to giving up on music altogether before this album. Mr. M follows a brief hiatus period where Wagner began to focus on his painting (the album artwork is all by him), and by all accounts it took him a great deal and coaxing from his friends to return to music. The album is dedicated to his close friend Vic Chesnutt, whose death shook Wagner quite a lot, and Wagner has quoted himself stating that the writing process for Mr. M began with him stating that there’s still at least one album left in the band, that even if it wasn’t going to be the last Lambchop album they were going to treat it as if it were. If Mr. M sounds like it's pushing the band's formula forward and its song selection is stronger than the average album by them, the context around it seems to explain why: that if Wagner were to break his silence and break from music, it needed to be with something that felt like it had something to say. I still go by my theory of first pickings, and maybe another Lambchop album would be my personal favourite had I heard it first, but to my ears Mr. M sounds like the most fully-rounded version of the standard Lambchop sound, something that could be a magnum opus swansong without it actually being one. In the frighteningly consistent Lambchop discography there’s the enjoyable albums and then there’s the albums where the band threaten to jump into classic territory; and this is one of the latter.

Rating: 8/10

Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From a Young Man (2010)

1) (It’s Not War) Just the End of Love; 2) Postcards From a Young Man; 3) Some Kind of Nothingness; 4) The Descent (Pages 1 & 2); 5) Hazelton Avenue; 6) Auto-Intoxication; 7) Golden Platitudes; 8) I Think I Found It; 9) A Billion Balconies Under the Sun; 10) All We Make Is Entertainment; 11) The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever; 12) Don’t Be Evil

If at first you don't succeed, try again. Another album made to flirt with the charts, but this time the band actually care about what they're pushing out.

Key tracks: "Postcards From a Young Man", "Some Kind of Nothingness", "The Descent (Pages 1 & 2)"

Each Manic Street Preachers album since the 2000s tends to come with a tag line, courtesy of Nicky Wire's giant mouth: an outlandish phrase that he’d repeat over and over in interviews to describe the album, sometimes even including it in the press release. For Postcards From a Young Man, that tag line was that it was their “last shot at mass communication”. With 2007’s Send Away the Tigers the band had aimed to win back the hearts of the general populace and were briefly granted with their attention as its lead single "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" became a minor hit, but the subsequent singles plummeted off the charts; for the follow-up album Journal for Plague Lovers they deliberately ignored the radio altogether, but their newly-found additional audience didn’t seem to miss them. The band still wanted to be popular again, but by this point a part of them had realised that perhaps they no longer had a place in what was popular and that trying to steer their career in that direction was a hopeless task. So, Postcards From a Young Man was to be the final gambit - another record with a more commercial sound, as one last attempt at becoming the people’s Manics again. If it wouldn’t stick, the band woved they would never try to seek chart success again.

Spoilers, it didn't work out - but the band were driven to try and pull it off. The general idea with Postcards From a Young Man is the same as it was with Send Away the Tigers, with big guitars and even bigger choruses leading the way. Compared to Send Away the Tigers, Postcards From a Young Man is a little more indulgent though: the string sections and other kitchen sink treatments are more prominent, a number of high profile guest stars appear (Ian McCulloch, Duff McKagan and John Cale all make an appearance), and most famously a gospel choir shadows the band across a selection of songs. There's an attempt to make something that's intentionally majestic and anthemic, like a victory lap without the prerequisite podium moment. The biggest difference between the two is that where Tigers was phlegmatic at best and cynical at worst, Postcards sounds a lot more sincere. Yes it's another intentional attempt to score a hit to stroke the band's egos, to be blunt, but the whole ride-or-die manifesto around it has made the band that much more invested in pulling it off - James especially sounds far more enthusiastic this time around, and Wire is downright glowing in his solo spot "The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever". There’s also a lot more variety to the songs, with even a few unexpected sidesteps that do not look directly to the past for inspiration. You could make an argument that Postcards is like what Tigers perhaps should have been from the get-go: the same ideas overall, but with some conviction and fresh ideas included.

This manifests more concretely in the simple, basic fact that Postcards has an overall better song selection than Tigers. Commercial isn’t necessarily a swear word and there’s nothing bad in a band playing up to tropes they know their way through inside and out even if they're a little too familiar, if you put your heart into it and focus. At worst, you could bark at the string-laden anthems in the vein of the title track, “The Descent” and the gospel-backed Ian McCulloch duet “Some Kind of Nothingness” as being very safe; but they are here to deliver massive, immediately resonant choruses and they do it so well it's hard not to get swept by the moment. The particularly important thing is that there’s some substance to them beyond the initial superficial gloss: “Postcards From a Young Man” is arguably the closest the band has gotten to when trying to rewrite the Everything Must Go anthems, “The Descent” has an unexpected regality to its coronal chorus that opts to slow things down and hammers its lush strings down to beautiful results, and “Some Kind of Nothingness” starts at 11 from the get-go and unashamedly delights in its bombast to the degree that it’s both ridiculous and genuinely good. It's not just done-and-gone recycling of old hit formulas, but thought has gone into how to represent the old tricks and give them a facelift, and most of the time it actually works. Most of the time: the lead single “(It’s Not War) Just the End of Love” is probably the band’s most inessential single, a thoroughly OK paint-by-numbers radio friendly unit shifter that’s most notable for Wire’s brief split-second vocal interjection cameo, which in itself is an attempt to replicate the similar moment from Tigers’ “Your Love Alone Is Not Enough”. It's almost sheepish compared to the next couple of tracks that throw in every kitchen sink in the shop, and the difference in how well the songs hit their aimed targets is like night and day between them.

The early-album trio of songs is Postcards boiled down to its purest essence but the band stretch themselves to a reasonable degree across the record and it’s what keeps the album interesting; as much as the album is supposed to be pandering towards their most popular sound, the trio take the time to dip their toes in some different waters, and often towards sunnier places that play against the band's type. Case in point, the super-upbeat, mandolin-featuring “I Think I Found It” - an absurdly happy pop ditty that’s so completely opposite to so much of the band’s history that it’s a shocker at first, but against all odds it works. The same positivty also shines across other tentative summer anthems like the smooth and string-laden “Hazelton Avenue” and the Wire-fronted singalong jam “The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever” - and the happiness sounds real, the musical equivalent of simply having a really good day when nothing goes wrong. The gospel-tinged “Golden Platitudes” on the other hand is slow and contemplative but similarly sincere, and as per its sound it's the natural high point of the choir who regularly appear across the record. The much-touted choir made for a big part of the album's promotional soundbites as an easy thing to point out when highlighting the album's boisterous direction, but for most part of the album it simply acts as an intensely amplified backing vocal harmony whenever they appear - a production element among many that fades between other similarly used elements, rather than helping to establish the album's identity. On "Golden Platitudes" though, the choir gets a chance to breathe within the song's space and contributes greatly to the song’s overall arrangement and feel.

The differences between how Send Away the Tigers and Postcards From a Young Man approach the same basic concept are most apparent when you consider the parts of the tracklist that’s closest to Tigers' balls-to-the-walls scattershot rock - because that’s still somehow persistent here too, likely as a nod to the people who may have picked up Tigers during its brief chart run. The ‘old man Wire yells at cloud technology’ trilogy “All We Make Is Entertainment”, “A Billion Balconies Under the Sun” and “Don’t Be Evil” do away with most of the album’s excess and replace with an added guitar crunch, but also throw away the bright excitement at the same time; albeit “Don’t Be Evil” and its hand-clap heavy chorus does manage to salvage some points by its end. For all their brimstone and bluster they’re largely bland and uninteresting, much in the same way this exact kind of material was on Send Away the Tigers. The annoying thing is that Journal for Plague Lovers showed that Manics absolutely can rock out still, but its lessons fell to deaf ears; apart from “Auto-Intoxication”, the most interesting out of all the more guitar-focused songs and which, with its fractured structure and blustering chorus, comes closest to the band applying the sound of Journal for Plague Lovers and translating it to a more polished sound.

The truth is that Postcards From a Young Man isn’t the most creatively exciting Manics album, and I don't think even the band would challenge that: in a trilogy of albums on very specific missions, this is the one that's most deliberate in how it plays its cards, and also sounds the most polished and yes, safest. Even at its best, it doesn't sound necessary - if you plucked this out of the discography forevermore, I don't think anyone would be truly heartbroken. But the songs it packs within are for the most part very enjoyable, simple as that. I've tried to challenge them because somewhere in my deepest parts I'm pettily grumpy about the band going on a wild goose chase while snubbing what I love about the albums of theirs that mean the most to me - but I enjoy listening to most of these songs, and the years have been surprisingly kind to them. The fact that it rails so hard down on its chosen route is ultimately for the benefit of Postcards, because it translates as some investment and inspiration towards the songs, which in return fills them with a creative spark that was missing from Send Away the Tigers. Postcards sounds like it does mean something to the people that made it, and is not just a checkbox exercise. Crucially, it sounds like they all had fun doing it: the (over)indulgence in all the production elements has given the band the opportunity to strip away some of the self-seriousness they've carried around for a while now and even if they could have used those elements more elaborately, there's a Queen-like giddiness to the pomp and bombast

As mentioned earlier, the Manics failed to meet the mission parameters they set for the album - the charts had moved on and a veteran rock band was no longer something that fit in that world. It turned out to be a good thing because for once the band kept their promise, and for the next few albums they would return to a mindset where they recorded music just for them, with no external audience in mind, and it would be a creative return to form. And still, it seems unfair that the lasting legacy of Postcards From a Young Man is that it was the death knell to one particular chapter of the band. It paints it as a failure, when in reality it's more of a secret success: the proof that the Manics could aim for a more intentionally commercial sound while still retaining some quality control and trying a few new things while at it.

Rating: 7/10

Husky Rescue - Ship of Light (2010)

1) First Call; 2) Sound of Love; 3) Fast Lane; 4) Wolf Trap Motel; 5) Man of Stone; 6) When Time Was on Their Side; 7) Grey Pastures, Still Waters; 8) We Shall Burn Bright; 9) They Are Coming; 10) Beautiful My Monster

The Huskies' dream pop gets a little more muscular with their most dynamic release yet.

Key tracks: "Sound of Love", "Fast Lane", "We Shall Burn Bright"

If the previous two albums had codified ethereal moodpieces as Husky Rescue's modus operandi, their third shakes things up; compared to its predecessors and in the context of this particular group, Ship of Light is a muscular, high adrenaline record. Ghost Is Not Real showcased the growth of the band as a band, not just a studio project, and Ship of Light goes the full mile from there. Moreso than normally, here the Huskies' sound is centered around the classic bass/drums/guitar setup, and in particular the first two: the heart and soul of these songs frequently rests in their rhythm section, a propulsive bass and pounding drums leading the momentum forward. The trademark dreamy haze of the band hasn't gone anywhere, it's now simply speeding down the moonlit highway under four wheels. In other words, this is the first Husky Rescue album that deliberately tries to move away from the cinematic headphone heaven of the band's established sound, by edging towards what we could consider, for this act, a more "rock" sound. Ship of Light is constantly on the move, eagerly twitching forward and keeping its pace, with only a few serene interludes in the way.

This new emphasis on having a legitimate groove going on is great for two reasons: one in that it's another feather in Husky Rescue's cap which differentiates it from the first two albums, but also in that it gives the band the chance to spice up what they're already great at. By now we know that Husky Rescue are experts of making wonderful mood moments that paint intricate landscapes in the listener's mind - that studio magic hasn't vanished, but now it urges you to run through those landscapes. The lush, detail-heavy production pushes the rhythm in the forefront this time, so high-energy songs like "Fast Lane" and "Man of Stone" are both rich in ambience but also racing ahead: they're like soundtracks to a car chase in your dreams, and given how many people seem to have similar driving-related associations around this album, it feels almost intentional. 

The added dynamics were a welcome addition to Ghost Is Not Real and so their increased importance certainly isn't unwelcome, especially given how well it works. At best, they add a new dimension to the familiar Husky Rescue sound, like on "Sound of Love". It's Ship of Light's contribution to the tradition of stand-out pop singles that inhabit each Husky Rescue album so far, and while it's drenched in comfortably rich keyboard textures and is packed full of intricate details (I particularly love the almost-inaudible male backing vocals in the chorus), it's the bass runs and the thrusting drums that lead the song this time around, pushing the central hook to the surface. At its most exciting, it reveals entirely new aspects - the end-of-the-world rave of "We Shall Burn Bright" sounds like it's on a frantic escape run, rushing through with its organ stabs and layered percussion before finally finding itself on a clearing to launch into a majestic build-up that's all the more rewarding for what preceded it. Both burst with strength the band hadn't had before, and which they've expertly weaponised for their own means. 

There's still plenty of more familiar territory but the impact of the new band power is so strong that the old atmospheric vibes actually pale in comparison. "Grey Pastures and Still Waters" and "They Are Coming", both extended mood pieces by and far, come across more like interludes. Each Husky Rescue album has had a song or two where the purpose has been to bridge the gap between two stronger songs, but the drive of the earlier parts of Ship of Light fades these two into the background completely. Similarly "Beautiful My Monster" closes the album somewhat lacklusterly; it's nice, especially once it gets going as it hits its flashy finale, but for the first and only time on the album the band feel like they're repeating old tricks with a thin coat of new paint over it. In defense of the more graceful moments, "Wolf Trap Motel" towards the start of the album is a particularly gorgeous example of just how well Husky Rescue work as crafters of soundscapes that seize you within, with its misleadingly long introduction leading onto a lush, dream-like and wonderfully arranged mid-tempo piece. The surprise gear switch simply underlines the differences between it and its later-album siblings.

Which leads to my main complaint, i.e. that the first half of the album seems to be loaded with all the cuts Husky Rescue have been the most confident about in the excitement of their increased presence, while after the halfway point the album starts sliding down towards mostly tried and tested ideas, just less excitingly than in the past two albums. "Sound of Love" hooks you in, the straightforward bangers like the intensely cruising "Fast Lane" and the atmospherically thumping "Man of Stone" circle exciting around the beautiful moodiness of "Wolf Trap Motel", and "When Time Was on Their Side" slides from its slow-burning beginning into one of the album's best choruses. Once the album settles back into familiar ground - apart from the sudden jolt of "We Shall Burn Bright" - it starts losing its shine. Playing to the group's old strengths isn't as rewarding this time around as showing off the new skills; I start the album thinking I've grossly underrated it, and leave it by realising why I haven't rated it as highly as I thought I mayhaps should.

Minor niggles though. Three albums in and despite operating in a style where locking yourself to its aesthetics will quickly lead to repetetive albums, Ship of Light is something new to the Huskies and for a good part of its duration, exhilarating. Where the first two albums were ones you'd fall in love with through your headphones, this practically invites you to play it aloud. Husky Rescue's growth from a collaborative project centered around one ringleader to a true collaboration between a tight group of friends reaches its apex here, and it still surprises with how such a studio-focused act transfers that interplay dynamic so audibly. Fate has it then that this would turn out to be the last album for this particular line-up as well; but even if it's not their best record, the people involved really perfected their own shared magic here.

Rating: 7/10

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers (2009)

1) Peeled Apples; 2) Jackie Collins Existential Question Time; 3) Me and Stephen Hawking; 4) This Joke Sport Severed; 5) Journal for Plague Lovers; 6) She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach; 7) Facing Page: Top Left; 8) Marlon J.D.; 9) Doors Closing Slowly; 10) All Is Vanity; 11) Pretension/Repulsion; 12) Virginia State Epileptic Colony; 13) William's Last Words; 14) Bag Lady [hidden track]

The Manics dig open a part of their past they hadn't dare to touch in years, and unearth their sense of impish glee.

Key tracks: "Peeled Apples", "Virginia State Epileptic Colony", "Bag Lady"

Desperately trying to claw back into the spotlight, succeeding and then throwing it all away right afterwards is an utterly nonsensical way of going about things, and therefore perfectly in line with Manic Street Preachers. Journal for Plague Lovers followed the commercial comeback of Send Away the Tigers and proudly did the complete opposite: minimal promotional appearances, no singles (beyond a brief radio premiere of one song and a quickly recorded straight-to-Youtube video for another), and a small tour centered around playing the entire new album in full with a small portion of time devoted to the hits. But amidst the Manics' desire to get back into public consciousness, and after the successful but questionable Send Away the Tigers, Journal for Plague Lovers was an olive branch aimed at the fans and the critics; just as much of a plead for recognition as the previous album, just from a different angle this time. Everyone loves 1994's The Holy Bible and while the band had openly denied they'd ever tread that territory again due to Richey Edwards not being around anymore, Journal for Plague Lovers is the direct sequel that was widely considered to never happen. Another thirteen songs (plus one hidden track this time), another Jenny Saville painting as a cover and most importantly, another set of lyrics by Richey: chosen samples of the stack he left behind for his friends to use, finally utilised after years of saying they'd remain private.

The Manics would have been utterly stupid to try and replicate The Holy Bible because only the particular circumstances around that album could ever have created something like it, and the band were nowhere near that same frame of mind in 2009. Good job that didn't happen, as Journal for Plague Lovers is very much its own beast. It shares some basic concepts, primarily a focus on the core band without too many embellishments and a slightly rawer production (courtesy of a paycheck-mode Steve Albini), but the band had gone through a lot of changes after the original 1994 album and that's affected the sequel - and that includes Richey, as well. During The Holy Bible Richey's lowest of lows had decided the tone of the material, but his lyrical voice had started to shift after the album's creation and had started to be more... fun? Already clear from some of the more outrageous and absurd song titles present here, Richey's later set of lyrics feature a curious sense of wit and black humour. The lyrics are still primarily full of serious and occasionally gruesome imagery (and so many obscure literary references), frequently hinting at their writer's dark mental state, but Richey frequently cuts the tension with a quirky kind of levity, sometimes even indulging in absurdities ("Jackie Collins Existential Question Time", "Me and Stephen Hawking", "Virginia State Epileptic Colony"...). I was never a huge fan of Richey's lyrical style but the direction indicated by what was selected for Journal for Plague Lovers leaves me intrigued, and quite wanting me to see where he would have gone next.

The band clicked on the askew playfulness of the lyrics and musically Journal for Plague Lovers is the most irreverent and, at times, simply the most fun the Manics have been since Know Your Enemy. The rugged and grungy guitars are full of adrenaline, but there's a bounce behind them. The songs are quickfire three-minute bursts but pack a whole lot of heart and wild abandon within the short run lengths, and the band sound free from any second guessing or rigid formulas that had started to plague them on the stoic boredom of Send Away the Tigers. The stodgy attempts at stadium singalongs and lazy guitar solos are completely absent, replaced by punked up choruses and headbanger riffs. It literally puts a smile on one's face to hear the giddy riff fills of "Me and Stephen Hawking", the cheeky jangle and sneerily super-cheery chorus of "Virginia State Epileptic Colony", the thudding synth post-punk beat of "Marlon J.D." or the quick burst of fury that concludes "Jackie Collins Existential Question Time" - all four particularly brilliant tracks that glow with the mad creative instinct of a band stripping away their self-engrained limitations and learning how to enjoy playing together again. The trio sound rejuvenated and while the production is relatively sparse compared to the previous albums, the instrumental performances themselves are full of detail and energy, and for the first time ever, even Wire's - his bass parts are one of the best areas of the album, with the runs and fills of the title track and the crunchy lead rhythm of the mission statement of an opener "Peeled Apples" standing out, in particular.

Journal for Plague Lovers is at the end of the day a bit of a tribute act to an old friend, and so it's not all too surprising that parts of it are spent in a more contemplative mood. "Facing Page: Top Left" is simply a tender solo piece from James, "This Joke Sport Severed" is one of the more indulgent parts of the album thanks to its breathtaking string-laden second half, and "Doors Closing Slowly" lurches in a lamentful march that comes closest to describing the sorrow quietly hanging in the background of the whole album. Journal for Plague Lovers is an album with two very distinct sides to it, one loud and rash and another retreated into a private corner,  and the two strike an important balance that ultimately works in the favour of both. While James takes the natural lead elsewhere, it's Wire who gets the last word, which is only appropriate given the closeness between him and Richey. The lyrics of "William's Last Words" have been edited rather questionably to act like a suicide note (the full lyrics could be seen with the deluxe edition and it's clear only some sections made it to the album) but it's honestly forgivable simply because Wire sounds like he's fighting back tears as he leads the vocals on the closing track. It's a touching, beautiful and surprisingly vulnerable closer for an album that's otherwise so bold and aggressive; if you still felt cynical about the band resurfacing this part of their legacy, "William's Last Words" is the reminder of the very real emotions and still very open wounds the band have around the subject of their lost friend, and Wire's rough voice over James' more trained set of pipes have a fragility that pins down that point.

I readily admit I was one of the cynical ones about the band's intentions behind the album's release - how could you not be after Send Away the Tigers - and even now I think the fact that it's sandwiched between two albums that very openly try to rub against particular audiences does it no favours, making it guilty by implication. But Journal for Plague Lovers is a real joy: the raw power of the early Manics brought back fresh from the time machine, while taking elements from the more refined latter-day Manics where it pleases and bringing out little surprises throughout its length. Even the hidden track is great. "Bag Lady" is a Manics original rather than a cover like the past hidden Manics tracks, and it's actually one of the album's best songs, a ridiculously catchy pop sensibility married to neurotic, drilling guitars - and it even works as the real closer after the tearjerking credits roll of "William's Last Words", cheekily appearing to close the record with a final bang in a manner that so befits the album's twisted wit. Not everything is a complete bullseye but the flaws are minor and due to the brevity of the songs they don't overstay their welcome, and you can still hear the inspiration and intent behind them even if the melodies aren't as sharp as elsewhere. Far from being just a retread of the past, Journal for Plague Lovers is more than its concept gives the impression for: rather, its wicked muscle is somewhat unique among the band's catalogue and it has its own identity despite the intentional ties to the past. Somewhat ironically - and maybe a bit cruelly - despite the billing as an album for Richey, he ends up being a little overshadowed by his friends, who have rediscovered the creative lightheartedness that they had started to bury. Journal for Plague Lovers leans against the heaviest part of the band's weighty legacy, but brightly wanders its own trails rather than trying to imitate the old ones.

Rating: 8/10

Husky Rescue - Ghost Is Not Real (2007)

1) My Home Ghost; 2) Diamonds in the Sky; 3) Nightless Night; 4) Blueberry Tree Part I; 5) Blueberry Tree Part II; 6) Blueberry Tree Part III; 7) Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking); 8) Silent Woods; 9) Shadow Run; 10) Caravan

A dream pop trip down the Finnish woods, just as enchanting as that sounds.

Key tracks: "Diamonds in the Sky", "Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking)", "Caravan"

The big step for Husky Rescue on Ghost Is Not Real, their second album, is that they have become an actual band. Where the debut Country Falls was an archetypical producer’s record, the formation of a stable live unit around it lead to Husky Rescue becoming a group with a defined membership for the second album. With a more solid workforce behind the music, it's helped the project as a whole to steer into a more cohesive place. The defining elements of the debut are still the foundation of Husky Rescue's sound - dreamy soundscapes, gently hypnotising bass, whispering vocals and atmospheric melodies. Now, in addition, there’s a more focused approach to bringing those ideas into reality. Much moreso than the debut, Ghost Is Not Real is designed as a full journey with a clear trajectory and a conceptual angle to it, and in case it's not obvious then a third of the tracklist being dominated by a three-parter should tip you off. The biggest hint is in the liner note artwork for the album and its vivid nature imagery, both real and fantastic - and that's exactly where Husky Rescue have wandered off.

There was a pervasive, if a little hard-to-define Nordic charm and magic to Country Falls, and Ghost Is Not Real consciously dives into that a whole lot more this time around. Throughout the album the band very explicitly tap into various yet unmistakably Nordic nature imagery, e.g. “Nightless Night”, the “Blueberry Tree” trilogy and most poignantly on the wonderful serene winter stillness of "Silent Woods". Even in the songs where it isn't the central theme of the song, nature is still a tangible influence that pops up throughout one-off lyrics or even the sounds used within the songs. You don’t really listen to Husky Rescue for their lyrics but here they serve the important point of adding the final brushstrokes to the images painted with the music, hammering in the very atmosphere they’re trying to nail down. Country Falls created bite-size cinematic scores with each song and that approach is still there, but extended to a full-length feature. Ghost Is Not Real is a pseudo-documentary about road tripping through the Finnish countryside, each song a snapshot of a particular place and time that’s somewhere between real, vivid memories of seasons experienced and a kind of magical reality where every element is heightened.

Ghost Is Not Real invokes the beauty of the Finnish nature through the music especially well, in a way that even I think is preposterously pretentious to say if it wasn't for how I genuinely feel about it. To dig a little deeper there, my roots lie in Finland and the very thing I miss the most from my old haunts is the nature. Finland is a large country with a small population, with stretches and stretches of forests, fields and lakes in-between and even within the central population areas. Because the country is up north, it gets the full range of seasons in their most iconic guises: the cold, snow-covered winters, the verdant and warm summer, the visible transformation of spring and the multi-colour melancholy of autumn. Nightless nights in midsummer, the darkness that never ends in the depth of winter. You grow up in Finland and the nature becomes an integral part of who you are as a person, with deeply ingrained sensory memories which still feel fresh decades later. Those feelings and memories are pretty much impossible to really describe with words to people who do not have them (though, full caveat, will have their own equivalents), and much less in a way that doesn’t involve any kind of visuals. But that's precisely what Husky Rescue have achieved here. I listen to Ghost Is Not Real and I see those places in my mind; what the band have created here stirs those memories.

Strictly from a musical perspective, at the heart of Ghost Is Not Real as well as Husky Rescue in general lies an artful balance between between instantly affecting pop songs with big, bold melodies, and daydreamy mood pads that drift the listener somewhere else. The debut had a slight imbalance between the two, but here the band have achieved as close to an equilibrium as they can. “Diamonds in the Sky” is the very testament to that: it's the dictionary definition of Husky Rescue's sound and it's as perfect as you’d want that kind of ideal representation to be, both in terms of its sugar-sweet melodies and the lush ambience in-between them, transporting you to the backseat of a car driving through the quiet night-time countryside. “Caravan” might be an even better example. Each Husky Rescue album has that one stand-out hit cut where the band go all-in on those melodic hooks and "Caravan" is arguably the very best of them, with a driving chorus so sweet and gorgeous you’ll brush away the inherent bittersweetness of the song itself. It's a magnificent song that's both a jolt of energy as well as guaranteed headphone heaven, and if you haven't been convinced by Reeta-Leena's vocals being absolutely pitch perfect for the band's sound by the end the of the album, it's her heavenly presence here that should act as the ultimate proof. As a frontperson she's not the type who instantly commands the floor the second she steps in front of the mic, but after the practice run of the debut her soft delivery has bloomed into an essential part of the warmth of Husky Rescue's music. 

The big thing that Ghost Is Not Real introduces is the added dynamics to the group's sound. They're a real band now - a band who have gotten to trust eachother on stage and who play excellently together, and which they've decided to take to the studio with them. There's so many moments on Ghost Is Not Real that have a thrilling energy to them or which downright burst to life because of how the group, well, sound like a group on the record. The seven-minute, guitar-revved "Nightless Night" is a mad rush through the woods for its entire length and legitimately rocks, which is a brand new concept for Husky Rescue but introduced excellently because they sound like a group playing tightly together and not just session musicians. Later down the line "Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking)" takes that same urgency and retools it for use in what otherwise could have been another (admittedly lovely) dream pop song, but now it explodes and cascades in whimsical abandon while still retaining its studio-perfect arrangements; the production and arrangements in general are fantastic throughout, perfect for a headphone jaunt, and it's surprisingly the wilder moments like "Hurricane" that really bring it out. The "Blueberry Tree" trilogy is understandably the album's heart: the dreamy build-up of part 1 starts the experience gently, before moving onto the magical part 2 that skitters gleefully in its twinkling melodies, and finally the last part builds on the melodies of the first two and grows them into a majestic post-rock-esque rock climax. Together they form a gorgeous ten-minute journey that tips its toes into the various facets of Husky Rescue, brings out the beauty of the nature themes the album is centered around and ends in a thrilling way that paves the way perfectly for the last half of the album. The band sound alive and in sync, not just studio wizardry anymore but utilising the pitch-perfect production to heighten their own chemistry.

Ghost Is Not Real is Husky Rescue's best record purely from a musical perspective and through its songs, and that's something I'd imagine is a fairly universal, non-controversial take. What makes it special for me though is the particular atmosphere it invokes. I'm not certain how much they exactly planned to channel the spirit of their country through when they went all-in on the nature imagery around the album (I can't find any interviews, sadly), but I do know that after moving out of Finland this was one of the albums that kept me company when homesick, precisely because of how much like home it sounded. Between the blissful melodies and delicate soundtrack textures there's a warm, tangible feeling I associate clearly with my own roots - delivered through the perfectly fitting form of a stunningly good dream pop album.

Rating: 9/10