My Latest Novel – Deaths & Entrances
I’ve been wrong about My Latest Novel in the past, and consequently I am a little wary of pronouncing any sort of definitive judgment on this album, but there’s only so long you can dodge a review, so I might as well inscribe my line in the sand here as anywhere. The way it worked for me with Wolves was that for all I found the overall record a little unremarkable at first, there were one or two tracks I fell for immediately. It took months, but I came to genuinely love the whole album.
In the case of their new effort Deaths and Entrances I have certainly found a good fistful of truly excellent songs; the two I’ve linked to below, I Declare a Ceasefire and A Dear Green Place, are truly gorgeous, and the first half contains some stuff I really do think is fantastic. I am still no more than half there with the rest of the album though, I must confess.
It sounds, in all honestly, an awful lot like the last one in many respects. Given I love the last one this is no criticism per se, and there has been incremental evolution. It is not, however, as musically adventurous from one song to the next as Wolves was, and this is not necessarily a good thing. The Broken Records album has been crticised – and it’s a criticism I agree with to an extent – for bulding to a grand crescendo in every song on the record, and although this doesn’t quite do so in the same style, exactly, the trajectory of each song is nevertheless very similar.
What this does to an album is rob it slightly of an emotional path of its own. It somehow seems to have the result, despite it all having a very consistent sound, of making this sound more like an accumulation of songs than a single, coherent album, which works well as a collection. It’s like an anthill – there may be lots of different ants within, all amazing little creatures in their own right, but the anthill itself can be something orders of magnitude more impressive in its own way, which each doing its own job within. Unfortunately, because these ants all have the same basic design, the album ends up coming across as simply a bunch of ants rather than as an interdependent, unified colony.
I’ll wait though, and give this a few more listens, because as I said right at the beginning, I’ve been wrong about these guys in the past.
My Latest Novel – I Declare a Ceasefire
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My Latest Novel – A Dear Green Place
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i think you’re wrong. but i see your points and like this piece.
actually, what i’d say about this is that your BR comment is valid yet with both albums, I keep going back again and again. sign of a good record.
Definitely, and that’s what brought me round to MLN’s first album – for all I wasn’t immediately convinced, I did keep revisiting it again and again until I eventually got it.
this is one of the albums this year that is getting worn out on my stereo.
Well, to be very honest, I much prefer this to the Broken Records album & I disagree with the overall viewpoint above.
I have never liked MLN before, really, & was pleasantly surprised by the sampler I received then really taken in by the album when it showed. Repeat playing revealed quite an organic sounding fare, with little by way of excessive production booth filtering & unnecessary polishing.
I don’t think they, the band, the constructions of the songs, the sequencing of the album, whatever, consciously, subconsciously, by transference, or whatever, takes any of the emotional impact away from the ting as a whole or broken down into its parts.
“I Declare A Ceasefire” is one of the best songs I’ve heard this year. If anything they remind me of Phantom Band with their chasing “the epic”, but keeping the right side of it without being too overblown or bombastically self-aware.
DC – I do agree with your “I Declare A Ceasefire” comment and that I prefer this to BR album.
“I don’t think they, the band, the constructions of the songs, the sequencing of the album, whatever, consciously, subconsciously, by transference, or whatever, takes any of the emotional impact away from the ting as a whole or broken down into its parts.”
What?
Hmm, I don’t know. I am still hearing something of a morass, and I considerably prefer the BR record – not that the two are particularly comparable in any real way other than the one I mentioned, if you ask me, so I am not trying to create an artificial competition here.
After the first third of this record I start to get really bogged down though, and struggle to pay attention any more. The songs go up and up in the same way and I find myself losing a little patience.
Again, though, this also happened the first time round, and I was wrong then, so maybe I’ll change my mind.
i’m pleasantly surprised by these 2 songs, nice enough, but nothing that is going to change my mind about them, i never took that much interest in this band in the first place and i doubt i will after i press the submit button.
saw them support The Twilight Sad last year and they were bloody shocking….really were!
i don’t get the phantom band thing at all…..whose album is defo one of the albums of the year for moi
Well those two are a mixed bag.
With that opening guitar strum, I thought I knew exactly where the first song was heading – straight into Cold Patrol / Snowplay territory – but it actually took a few interesting melodic detours along its journey, before that disappointingly dull coda introduces itself.
The second one is actually a really nice song – in terms of words and music – labouring under a boring, anonymous arrangement. Shame.
It’s not the same lead singer on each track, is it?
Cold Patrol / Snowplay joke bores me (this is not just directed at Dylan) and i was talking to somebody about this last night.
i love the first 2 coldplay albums
i love the first 3 Snow Patrol albums
subsequent ones haven’t been as good but have had a couple of good songs on each….
you’ll all be saying Broken Fire/Arcade Records next!!
they have 3 singers. the worst singer happens to be the lead singer but I like his voice. the backing singers are both exceptional. they also have a female vocal from time to time.
I saw My Latest Novel play Versacoustic at the Bongo Club a couple of years ago and they were fucking excellent. These two songs here I really love, it’s more some of the rest that I am not really into just yet, particularly the second half of the album.
Tom, Cold Patrol jokes tend to be more aimed at recent output, don’t they? I know what you mean about reflex insults, but it’s just code for ‘bog standard, slightly grandiose MOR’ isn’t it?
I like Arcade Records though, that made me laugh, but don’t tell Jamie.
an afterthought….there is no way on this slimy little earth (even just on the evidence of these 2 songs) that this is better than BR’s UTEBTP….no fucking way….i just wanted to state that for the record.
Love
Smiley fucking face
i really like bands with vocal interplay. the 3 harmonies do it for me. it’s something i have asked jamie before – about vocals. i hope BR bring more harmonies into the mix on future songs.
Apparently one of their songs was actually written with a female vocal in mind – I think it might be And They All Fell Into the Sea, but I don’t quite remember.
still think its a better record
well, i do think if they threw in harmonies then they would up the game another level, if thats possible.
still think you’re sniffing glue DC
INSERT SMILEY FUCKING FACE HERE
heavy duty spray adhesive bruv
Ooh. That shit is terrifying.
You can stick anything to anything with that, and from some distance.
If you’ve been inhaling it, that might explain your recent melancholia, DC.
And why your face keeps sticking to stuff.
I like Ceasefire quite a lot although I agree with Dylan a little about the coda. Not too fussed about the second one though it might grow on me. Will get the album cos I enjoyed the first album, although for me it was patchy – some great songs; some ok songs.
I saw them live supporting Frightened Rabbit and I didn’t really enjoy it, I think I was too close to a speaker or something – I just coudln’t hear what they were doing, maybe that was the point.
TT you just reminded me it was FR they supported…shocking!!
FR were pretty shoddy that night also
I saw MLN play a tiny basement club round the corner from me a few years ago where me and a friend were more than a quarter of the audience and it really put me off them – not really their fault I guess, and I should listen again. They had to compete with the support act, who was Thomas Truax, who ignored the stage, gave us instruments and got us to stand in circle around him and join in, so it was always going to be hard for them. I will have another go at them now.