Absent Friends

by

The Divine Comedy

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This unusual CD is very much a grower, as other reviewers have rightly said and as always with growers, you end up liking the least user-friendly songs best. First, Neil Hannon's voice dominates the proceedings - stating the bleedin'obvious, you may say - but it is a most unusual voice constantly challenged and egged on by some of the equally extraordinary and original arrangements and orchestrations. As a result, Neil's offerings can no longer be called pop music or even anything like it, with such oddities as a bass bassoon in "Happy Goth", a purely string backed song in "Our mutual friend", an almost music-hall setting for "Charmed Life" and God knows what for the instrumental "Laika's theme".

Neil Hannon can really really sing, and he gets those notes: sometimes, as you may guess from the heading, the whole thing reminds me of a much more thoughtful and emotionally charged Temperance Seven, fuelled by Whispering Paul McDowell's 20s voice and Joseph Kronk's exceptional arrangements.

The obvious "quickies" are "Absent Friends" and "Come home Billy Bird", the first sounding like a mad canter through the Big Country with a cast of Neil's unlikely characters and the second a light-hearted romp about a sad middle manager waking up drunk after a Belgian businmess meetinmg and trying to catch his plane home to see son's match. Very good, almost poppy but not quite. "Happy Goth", about the lonely adolescent girl locked in her inarticulacy, costume and attitude, listening to something awful like Nirvana, is deeply affecting in its portrayal of complete communication breakdown ("that's what she would say, if she ever talked to you")- and it features the bass bassoon: knighthoods all round. I know a young girl like this and she is also lovely inside and out - but her beautiful self has almost sunk to screaming point under the loneliness and image. Desperately sad. "The Wreck of the Beautiful", Neil's frightening ghostly allegorical tale of a ship rusting to death, is just outstanding and shows a complete maturity of thought, writing, singing and arrangment - beyond all doubt one of the best two or three things he has ever produced. The same is true of "Sticks and stones" ("you and I go together, like the molar and the drill") about romantic breakdown and of "Leaving today" about Dad leaving home and all the heartache involved. Bye bye, bye bye.

"Our mutual friend", a witty story about being gazumped over a girl by the mutual friend (another refernce to Noel Coward) who introduced them, is a musical storm with the staccato strings and then a wall of emotion at the end, is great and so is "Freedom Road" which I find very chilling. It's built around one guitar clawhammer chord, except that orchestrations give it another new dimension of almost fear and a whole new chord sequence. "Laika's theme" is an odd instrumental that will not be to everbody's taste, but "Charmed Life", a genuine thanks to arriving at a happy state, includes the tribute line "Breaking up is so very hard to do" - nice touch!

I suppose that any other "band" would have had 5 stars for this very odd and deeply moving work, but Neil is such a one-off that he has to be judged agaist himself, really. Make no mistake, you will play this until the laser guide disappears and it is incredibly good, well thought out and beautifully played (just get the bass and strings on Charmed Life).

When Neil Hannon gets a universal five stars there will not really be any competition left in this field, and there's very little as it is. Worth every penny of your money and this will stick with you for life, I guess. Excellent, unique - but also unsettling and chilling at times. Music isn't always fun, gang.