Stornoway:
Tales From Terra Firma:
4AD
Out now
8/10
Despite its tempestuous, but beautifully-drawn, album sleeve with images
of stormy seas and moonlight, Stornoway's second album starts like a sunrise in
the city, rather than a dimly-lit dream sequence by the harbour.
You Take Me As I Am is as assured as these chaps have ever been, throwing everything AND
the kitchen-sink into the mix (I'm sure I can hear a theremin in there,
somewhere) and setting something of a precedent for the rest of the album.
Of
course, things quieten down as things often do and Farewell Appalachia carries you away to a land of snowy hills and cloudless skies in a
Midlake kind of way, before the livelier tones of The Bigger Picture reminds us of Simon and Garfunkel in Homeward-Bound mode.
If you could
level only one praiseworthy remark at Oxford's sub-folksters, it's that they've
wised up, grown up and tuned into a huge array of influences throughout this
pleasing album. OK, song number three is a mite twee for some tastes, but every
album needs a pop hit, right kids? Actually, you get a few on here - as well as
The Bigger Picture and that opener, Knock Me On The Head pipes up to kick off the second side of the vinyl edition, with all the
carefree joy of earlier singles I Saw You Blink and Zorbing. And if you were
only thinking the other day about clarinets in pop, check out The Great Procrastinator, after pondering for
ages about it first of course.
Perhaps Stornoway's previous Achilles heel was
the somewhat fey vocals - Terra Firma has a lot less, I can assure you,
something that makes this story-telling omnibus something of a must-buy.