Guy Garvey:
Courting The Squall:
Polydor:
LP/CD/DD:
Out Now:
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
After a handful of critically-acclaimed Elbow albums, it's no surprise to bear witness to singer Guy Garvey's solo debut - the surprise is actually how long it's taken him to get it all off his chest - the Bury boys have been recording for 15 years and show no sign of grinding to a creative halt anytime soon.
Unlike his critically-adored award-garnering band, Courting The Squall is a far more intimate affair. It's downbeat quite often, brassy frequently, intimate, lascivious even - and personal. Heartaches and heartbreaks lyrically canoodle hand-in-hand during songs accompanied by typically world-weary execution and breezy wide-eyed arrangements.
If you're expecting some hybrid of naval-gazing acoustic strum-drum or self-indulgent piano ballads, forget it. There's a band in tow and Garvey's in charge - he's all over this, you can tell. The neck-nodding Angela's Eyes is a garage-rock shuffle that sets out its stall with some bonkers psychedelic synth riffing (yes, this can happen in the positive), the whole experience resulting in a distant cousin of XTC's odd hard-to-find little b-side Egyptian Solution.
Garvey's velveteen gruff sounds perfect on the title-track, a song that wouldn't sound amiss on an Elbow album, but as this exercise is partly about making music that normally wouldn't, it's a refreshing inclusion because of it. Harder Edges is another relatively upbeat yet still with enough pockets of darkness to satiate those with a hunger for the forlorn.
One persistent comparable across much of this album? David Byrne and St Vincent's quirky wordy brass-showered project Love This Giant immediately springs to mind - Courting The Squall begins as an immersive fusion of unfettered sub-funk and joyous abandon.
The elation doesn't last for long however - the funereal Unwind signals a switch in pace, a song that slowly, ahem, unwinds and unfurls before ascending into stilted euphoria and acting as an usher for the remainder of the album. The second-half is as reflective as Garvey can be - Yesterday sports the charming closing line, "I am reborn cause my girl loves yesterday and lives for tomorrow" while the minor-key delta-blues affectations of Electricity follow similar lineage to Summertime or Stormy Weather, adding Holiday-esque vocals and words from the underrated Jolie Holland to great effect.
Only Belly Of The Whale lifts the spirits before the harmonious Three Bells heralds the end of an album in the same celestial vein as Dear Friends and The Blanket of Night. A delightful conclusive shush of a song, Three Bells is a minor masterpiece and a fitting curtain-call.
Courting The Squall:
Polydor:
LP/CD/DD:
Out Now:
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Unlike his critically-adored award-garnering band, Courting The Squall is a far more intimate affair. It's downbeat quite often, brassy frequently, intimate, lascivious even - and personal. Heartaches and heartbreaks lyrically canoodle hand-in-hand during songs accompanied by typically world-weary execution and breezy wide-eyed arrangements.
If you're expecting some hybrid of naval-gazing acoustic strum-drum or self-indulgent piano ballads, forget it. There's a band in tow and Garvey's in charge - he's all over this, you can tell. The neck-nodding Angela's Eyes is a garage-rock shuffle that sets out its stall with some bonkers psychedelic synth riffing (yes, this can happen in the positive), the whole experience resulting in a distant cousin of XTC's odd hard-to-find little b-side Egyptian Solution.
Garvey's velveteen gruff sounds perfect on the title-track, a song that wouldn't sound amiss on an Elbow album, but as this exercise is partly about making music that normally wouldn't, it's a refreshing inclusion because of it. Harder Edges is another relatively upbeat yet still with enough pockets of darkness to satiate those with a hunger for the forlorn.
One persistent comparable across much of this album? David Byrne and St Vincent's quirky wordy brass-showered project Love This Giant immediately springs to mind - Courting The Squall begins as an immersive fusion of unfettered sub-funk and joyous abandon.
The elation doesn't last for long however - the funereal Unwind signals a switch in pace, a song that slowly, ahem, unwinds and unfurls before ascending into stilted euphoria and acting as an usher for the remainder of the album. The second-half is as reflective as Garvey can be - Yesterday sports the charming closing line, "I am reborn cause my girl loves yesterday and lives for tomorrow" while the minor-key delta-blues affectations of Electricity follow similar lineage to Summertime or Stormy Weather, adding Holiday-esque vocals and words from the underrated Jolie Holland to great effect.
Only Belly Of The Whale lifts the spirits before the harmonious Three Bells heralds the end of an album in the same celestial vein as Dear Friends and The Blanket of Night. A delightful conclusive shush of a song, Three Bells is a minor masterpiece and a fitting curtain-call.