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Fairly in the identical method that it’s laborious to elucidate the genius of the TV collection Breaking Unhealthy to somebody who has by no means seen it (“It’s about this dying chemistry instructor who sells crystal meth…”), Massive Massive Practice’s strategy to music is hard to articulate to the uninitiated. With their superficial Genesis really feel set to pining, wistful tales of steam trains, they’re a band who proceed to progress with each launch, as their uniquely branded, mid-Twentieth century prog gathers an unstoppable momentum.
Launched final yr, their seventh full-length launch, English Electrical Half One, was a defining second, and the dexterity proven on such tracks as The First Rebreather and Judas Unrepentant ensured that it was rated as one of many albums of the yr.
Though recorded throughout the identical periods, there was a tangible concern that Half Two may fail to equal the excessive benchmark set by its predecessor. Thankfully, this companion verifies the speculation that Massive Massive Practice are a band for whom eloquent inspiration and a prolific brilliance comes naturally.
Half Two’s sentimental theme actually isn’t one thing new to the band – their first album was, in spite of everything, entitled Goodbye To The Age Of Steam – and it’s been on the core of their distinctive, nostalgia-infused music ever since. Certainly, they’re so proficient at lyrically conveying that feeling of the demise of a golden period that, even if you happen to weren’t born in these occasions, they nonetheless handle to generate a sense of soulful longing within the listener. It’s Boy’s Personal stuff, full with psychological pictures of coal fires, the wonders of engineering and the multi-dimensional characters that populate the tales.
Take, for instance, the opener East Coast Rider, a 15-minute observe that delves into the historical past behind the Nineteen Thirties prepare, Mallard. It’s a subject that actually gained’t enthral each listener, however the lush orchestrations and multiplicity of textures which were superbly layered all through the track undoubtedly will. Cleverly constructed and freed from the sort of meandering, musical flabbiness that may typically infiltrate prog tracks of this magnitude, it units the tone for the rest of the album.
The sizeable elephant within the room is the similarity of David Longdon’s vocals to Peter Gabriel’s – one thing that anybody listening to the band for the primary time will enjoy mentioning. But that is clearly one thing pure and it have to be a relentless frustration for Longdon that the comparability repeatedly crops up. In any case, what number of singers are there inside the steel style who sound like Robert Plant? Musically there are similarities too, however these aren’t in the best way that sure bands within the early 80s simply tried to be imitators. Genesis are merely one in all a number of influences which have helped form the band’s sound, and with the musicians behind Massive Massive Practice all being of a equally excessive calibre, they’ve developed into one thing really distinctive.
English Electrical Half Two is an album that possesses a exact steadiness between upbeat moments of swagger and mellower, virtually mournful segments, which ensures that every little thing flows impeccably.
An ideal instance of the latter is the impressed Swan Hunter. Full with an totally mesmerising brass part, and lyrics coping with the decline of a North East delivery yard and the bond between father and son, it’s thematically paying homage to the feelings expressed on Sting’s album The Soul Cages. With that subject material, this might be a doubtlessly miserable story, however with the band’s skilful supply, it’s really unexpectedly uplifting.
Elsewhere, Leopards and Labored Out are affectionate ballads, whereas Keeper Of Abbeys is a observe of such intense splendour – replete with painstakingly created interwoven melodies – that the magnitude of what Massive Massive Practice have once more managed to provide is hard to completely grasp.
For a band who’ve now been in existence for over 20 years to be creating albums as good as that is in itself totally outstanding. The truth that that is their second launch of such a calibre inside the area of a yr can solely reinforce the opinion that what we’re coping with right here is an act of uncommon, typically indescribable brilliance.