"My villain grew from a villain seed…"
So begins 'My Villain', track one, side one of The Mess Hall's new album 'For The Birds'. It’s the perfect introduction to the musical journey that unfolds in its wake. A bastardised glam rock stomp - aptly described by producer Burke Reid as being the place where, finally, Robert Palmer’s 'Simply Irresistible' can co-exist with Tom Waits - it’s an instant ice–breaker. On the surface, it’s simply a knockout song that invites you to lose your mind on the dance floor, but nothing is ever that simple in The Mess Hall’s world, and it comes with a darker lyrical twist:
"You bearing the knife/While I duck I dive and I weave/And when I get up/You hand me the missing piece".
So the tone is set for the rest of the album.
'For The Birds' is a record that sees The Mess Hall heading towards a new kind of beatnik soul that is very much their own. Every song is infused with a gritty kind of beauty, a surfeit of swing and sense of experimentation that is a natural progression from everything they achieved on their previous release, 'Devils Elbow' (winner of the Australian Music Prize in 2007). That album set the band apart as one who create their own world and fill it with narratives of the broken, the forgotten, the misunderstood, and very occasionally, the redeemed, and here those themes are refined and expanded upon.
Recorded at BJB studios in Sydney with producer Burke Reid once again at the helm, the band entered the studio more prepared than they had ever been - with 'prepared' being a relative term. To keep the recording process as spontaneous and creative as possible, The Mess Hall don’t demo in the traditional sense, preferring to leave themselves room to experiment and create once the tape is rolling without being held to anything they could have laid down as a practice run. Completely absorbing themselves in the album process, days passed without sleep, deadlines were stretched, and cabin fever came and went, but like all projects where struggle rears its head, the resulting album is worth every painful moment of its creation. 'For The Birds' is a cinematic, swinging, loping masterwork from a band that create their own world, and make music that is unique, fascinating, dark, uplifting and ambitious.
Where 'For The Birds' departs from The Mess Hall's previous recorded works is in the scope of its musical ambition and the band’s willingness to experiment. The most noticeable change comes in the band’s desire to play with a newfound sense of swing that owes a debt of gratitude to the great jazz players of a bygone era. On the drum set, Cec Condon provides a bed of sass and controlled looseness that can only come with the confidence of knowing exactly what you’re doing, and what the songs require. This playing gives the songs room to breathe and move in and around the beat with a studied abandon, and importantly, gives singer/guitarist Jed Kurzel the ability to move within the songs with a new sense of freedom.
First single, 'Bell', illustrates this template perfectly. A swinging, fuzzed-out keyboard bass lope, it sets off with a southerly bluster at its back and doesn’t look back. It’s full of room to move, feeling no need to fill in the gaps with anything other than the essentials. It’s a step away from the more guitar-heavy numbers generally associated with the band, indicative of their desire to make a record that progresses from places they’ve already visited.
From there, 'Tijuana 500' tells a tale of misfortune, loss and, maybe, some kind of redemption, set against a clanging guitar with an atmospheric glockenspiel line that keeps moving the song forward over a simple, repetitive two chord pattern. At the heart of the song is the simple truth that a place to fall, any place, is perhaps the greatest comfort one can hope for in a life misled.
The musical hypnotism of 'Tijuana 500' leads beautifully in to 'Bare', which begins with a lyrical nod to the unsettling world of Twin Peaks’ Leland Palmer, and starts to build slowly, gaining the momentum of a freight train (hackneyed, but true) as pianos begin to pound, and the desperation of Jed’s vocals reach a peak. Its frenetic energy is tempered immediately by the beginning of the next track, 'Marlene', a far slower and controlled piece of gothic balladry: "The bible in your hand is just for show". It’s bare and minimal, almost a shuffle that moves with an understated elegance.
As each song unfolds it becomes clear that this is an album that takes classic song structures and combines them with a sonic otherworldliness. There’s a cinematic quality to all of these tales, and an atmosphere that hints at things half seen and maybe half understood. In an age where mystery has no currency, 'For The Birds' rewards the listener over repeated listens by allowing them the luxury of making their own sense of the stories and sounds within it. Suggestion and atmosphere are more powerful than a need to have everything understood and accessible after one sitting.
'Silhouettes' marks what in days gone by would be the second side of the album. It’s a song that’s best listened to at 2am, when the world is sleeping and the listener is truly alone. Against a slow, muted drum pattern, Jed sings in a low croon, going around the melody for a time, until the song takes a new turn, with four bells marking its transformation into a beautifully dark Spectoresque ballad. "Sail alone or with me friend", comes the refrain against a sweet, reverb laden musical backing.
'New Ornithology' is a piece of blackened soul, driven by a couple of low piano notes pounded with the kind of force that wears enamel off the keys. It lurches and rolls like a storm cloud, full of menace and intent, and is the perfect accompaniment to the kind of possession taking over the narrator. 'The Switch' takes another stab at the stomp, and stabs the stomp. It’s another dance floor invitation with a twist.
'Long Time Death' sees the band push, pull and kick the song around with the kind of extreme confidence and swagger that comes from playing with that special kind of musical telepathy that only great bands have. There is a kind of greasy funk and grind at work here that is rarely heard now, in a world where computers record bands and we expect them to sound that way.
The conclusion to this collection of songs is 'Swing Low', and it’s a beautiful farewell. With Jed’s vocals backed by just the barest of piano and softly picked guitar, it suggests final credits rolling down a screen, an apt ending to an album that is as cinematic as it is melodic.
That, at its heart is what 'For The Birds' is - a cinematic album. It paints pictures and tells stories, but it’s up to the listener to make sense of it all. Its allure lies in its ability to keep offering more over repeated listens and to reward us for it. All of which would count for nothing if 'For The Birds' was not, simply put, an incredible collection of songs.
No current tours.
|
||
|
||
|
