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  #31  
Old 16-09-2021, 00:17
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Originally Posted by Marat Sar View Post
I think the Sunflower Bean girl does the icy Scandinavian vocals much better on TSHHM. That's defa an all time great duet for the Manics.
Still a sublime sounding duet for me after this many times hearing it but i wonder if it'll be a traci lords situation and she never sings it with them live. At least i think she never sung with them live? Pretty sure she didn't. That'd be a damn shame but also a part of me likes that it'll forever only exist as a gem on the album.
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  #32  
Old 16-09-2021, 07:41
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Overall TUVL continues to grow on me. So much so I've assembled a preferred cut from the demos and alt version.

Hot take: Still Snowing In Sapporo works best as an album closer.
Additional take: Diapause as an opener (not just because of the first line).
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  #33  
Old 16-09-2021, 16:36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tzb View Post
Overall TUVL continues to grow on me. So much so I've assembled a preferred cut from the demos and alt version.

Hot take: Still Snowing In Sapporo works best as an album closer.
Damn, Blank Diary Entry is so much better with just JDB. Love hearing his voice go that low. Very reminiscent of Too Cold Here, one of my fav underrated manics b-sides.
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  #34  
Old 16-09-2021, 23:47
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Have had a few listens over the last few days and have warmed a bit more to it. Got the album into little groups at the moment:

Still Snowing in Sapporo and Diapause are the standouts for me and sound like natural follow-ups to the Rewind the Film / Futurology era. Snowing in Sapporo is a little long and Diapause is nearly spoilt by that part added on at the end, but they they capture that "elegiac pop" sound the band have referred to over the years. .

"Tonight Matthew, we are going to be ABBA" - I would put Orwellian, The Secret He Had Missed, Complicated Illusions, Happy Bored Alone and Afterending into that category. Piano driven sound, big choruses - these songs have grown on me the more I have listened to them, but still think they don't compare too favourably to tracks on their stronger albums. That said, they have expressly said that they were after an ABBA sound and it's hard to argue that they haven't achieved that with these songs.

Blank Diary Entry - actually like the Mark Lannegan verses, but then don't think JDB's verses work well alongside them and the chorus just feels a bit flat really.

Quest For Ancient Colour, Don't Let the Night Divide Us and Into the Waves of Love - just not for me I'm afraid. That "boys from Eton" line stuck out like a sore thumb in the album taster and it doesn't sound any better on the album itself really.

These Dark Roads and My Drowning World - why oh why weren't these two on the album, preferably in place of the songs listed directly above?

Last edited by tomd2103; 16-09-2021 at 23:52.
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  #35  
Old 17-09-2021, 16:29
IntlDebris IntlDebris is offline
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Still Snowing in Sapporo - Probably the highlight. Shame to start the album with it, though, as everything else will always feel underwhelming (what I refer to as the 'Object 47 Problem'). Mr. Carbohydrate and SYMM are in its DNA somewhere.

Orwellian - The soaring melody in the chorus has grown on me, but I still think it's pretty naff overall.

The Secret He Had Missed - Decent. I'm not sure where I sit on the duets thing, sometimes it does feel a bit like they're just doing them for the sake of them. This is a good one, though. The Abba piano is my least favourite part.

Quest for Ancient Colour - Don't like the verses at all, but a gorgeous chorus.

Don't Let the Night Divide Us - Cringe. Still hate it. The album's Vivian.

Diapause - The sound is very TBTGOG b-sides. Not sure about the tempo change, but otherwise a nice song. Love the electric piano solo.

Complicated Illusions - It's quite nice. Hard to know what else to say.

Into the Waves of Love - The Year of Purification II: Weird Middle Eight. I have literally no idea what this is.

Blank Diary Entry - A nice song love the guitar sound, but agree with those who don't think the duet works. Not a big fan of gravelly vocals in general, which doesn't help.

Happy Bored Alone - Futurology with Lifeblood piano. Like this one a lot.

Afterending - My second favourite, so at least it's a brilliantly bookended record. Really hate that 1970s sounding snare though.

My Drowning World - lol that opening bit. This is such a gorgeous song, though, cannot fathom how it ended up as a Japanese bonus track.

These Dark Roads - Nice song, but it doesn't feel quite in keeping with the rest of the album for some reason, can hear why they left it off.


So I'm still generally positive, but not overwhelmingly so. Sapporo, Afterending and My Drowning World are straight on the Manics Classics playlist though.
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  #36  
Old 17-09-2021, 17:58
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A Soft Rock, Mellow LP overall, its good some strong songs/lyrics but I cannot say its a standout LP.

That's it really, they'll probably play 5 songs from it for sure.

This LP is not going to work in an arena so I'm skipping London & hopefully catch them on the 2nd leg.
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  #37  
Old 17-09-2021, 18:09
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Now enjoying the album pretty much the whole way through. They’re always growers.
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  #38  
Old 17-09-2021, 19:12
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Yep, even the ones I really cringed at to start with I've definitely warmed to. It's only "that bit" in Into The Waves Of Love which still makes me want to crawl out of my own skin, but that's hardly new for their music.

I found myself enjoying Blank Diary Entry for the first time today, and somehow my brain has forgiven the Eton/Beaten line enough to get through DLTNDU.

If it's Stockholm Syndrome, well, I've missed my Swedish holidays these last few years.
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  #39  
Old 18-09-2021, 15:07
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Sapporo starts like Tokyo Skyline.
Blazing vs frozen

Also, today when listening to Afterending
Just before chorus i expected him to sing:

Untie the noose
Here is the ladder….
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  #40  
Old 18-09-2021, 20:43
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I dunno what it but hearing a track on the radio that you particularly enjoy is more of a thrill then just sticking it on.
In this case, listening to diapause on 6music today and it's such a moving song with some great lyrics.
Particularly that second verse...

Quote:
I looked into the sunset I screamed and I sighed
I raised hope then it died so I ran and I lied
I stood still for a moment paralysed
The sky seemed so high as the world passed me by
That pause before he sings 'paralysed' is quite incredibly moving.
It's one of the few manics tracks i think where the bleakness of the lyrics closely matches the music, which is not something you can say for a lot of the songs on the holy bible even.
Be very interested to know what nicky's situation was when he wrote this.
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Please, he prayed, now -
A gray disk, the colour of Chiba sky.
Now -
Disk beginning to rotate, faster, becoming a sphere of paler gray. Expanding -
And flowed, flowered for him, fluid neon origami trick, the unfolding of his distanceless home, his country, transparent 3D chessboard extending to infinity.
Inner eye opening to the stepped scarlet pyramid of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority burning beyond the green cubes of Mitsubishi Bank of America,
and high and very far away he saw the spiral arms of military systems, forever beyond his reach.
And somewhere he was laughing, in a white-painted loft, distant fingers caressing the deck, tears of release streaking his face.
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  #41  
Old 19-09-2021, 18:59
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Just finished my second listen. It was a mix of "this sounds like an old Manics song" and "this sounds like a Kate Bush song".
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  #42  
Old 19-09-2021, 19:22
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Okay fellow FMFs…don’t get too excited but, yeah, “Diapause” just clicked with me in a big bad way.
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  #43  
Old 23-12-2021, 21:09
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It’s taken me a few months to actually pop some notes down on the album - I should wait more often, as the difference between this and an instant hot take is quite big.

I haven’t followed a huge amount of the backdrop to the album, but I was aware of the band trying to emerge from the pandemic with a positive sound rather than re-living the gloom of the last few years. I also noted the fact that it was written on piano and comparisons to ABBA coming from the band, along with some subtle nods to Lifeblood and Truth noticed by fans.

To me, I don’t place this album especially highly in the overall canon, but it is interesting. The run of albums since 2011 has seen the band shed the skin that probably defined them from 1996 to 2011. Since then, the albums have been more sonically experimental, and less and less like the “classic” widescreen Manics sound. If anything, they draw more on their original influences these days than ever before (eg: Bowie, Bunnymen, ABBA etc.)

As always there isn’t a Manics album that doesn’t have its sublime moments. For years, Nicky has talked about documenting things and capturing history (eg: Liverpool Revisited, Walk me to The Bridge) and Still Snowing in Sapporo is as close to a photograph as a song can get. That lilting looped sounds at the start I can almost see the snow falling through the light into the night.

Straight away, you get a sense of the tone scope of the album. There’s the blend of James altering his voice to suit the songs as age changes how he sings, melded with much more subtle guitars. The tone of the song feels like something from Futurology, but the heavy leaning on the acoustic sounds take it back towards a pinch of Lifeblood and those 80's classical influences. Whatever I think of the writing itself, this does set the tone for the album musically.

Into Orwellian, and the ABBA vibe kicks in a lot more strongly. It has that classic happy/sad feel to it, with the resigned bridge linking to the funky bass lick and the chorus. Although it’s a memorable moment, it falls short somehow. And you move on pretty quickly given that The Secret He Had Missed immediately follows it. In some ways, that song feels like an anomaly on the record in that it could come from any Manics album with a different production. It has hit written all over it, and that little twiddly guitar line leading into the chorus is glorious.

After that, much like its predecessor the album sags in the middle. I’m not sure if that’s because the experimentation overtakes the songwriting, but to me this quickly lands the band in the category of “decent album, would be a fabulous EP.” I can live without all of the next 3 songs to be honest.

Quest for Ancient Colour is nice enough, but it’s an ultimately forgettable track. Don’t Let the Night Divide us is the weakest spot on the record for me. The verse in particular is just very paint-by-numbers. Sometimes a performance can enhance a simple song, but in this case the structure feels too rigid. The little guitar licks and the “beaten/Eton” lines are notable, but they’re nowhere near enough to pull it back. Diapause is at least a little more interesting. This is the one that reminds me the most of Lifeblood instrumentally. It almost feels like what would happen if you put My Little Empire on that record and added a more upbeat ending.

Not many Manics albums are bottom heavy, but this one is and the closing part of the album is much more impressive. Complicated Illusions seems to carry on the tradition of having a lighters aloft track in the vein of Hold Me Like A Heaven. But in many ways, this track could/should endure too - as it’s a more complex and less direct track than previous efforts in this mould. Weirdly though - the old school production doesn't do the song much justice. I think with a Lifeblood sheen this would be a different animal.

The only song that skips a beat for me in the second half is Into the Waves of Love. To me this feels like a less good version of The Year of Purification. Blank Diary Entry is a really interesting track in that it feels like it would sit perfectly on TIMT. It’s a minimal, slightly bruised tune with a glint of hope in there (but not too much.) I can just hear the sadness of Black Dog and I’m Not Working coming through in this one, which might have been a direct response to touring the album in 2019?

I love how Happy Bored Alone almost sounds like they left the tapes running after Blank Diary, and just banged out a single. The guitar lines on the intro sound like James just faffing about and noodling, and yet it kicks in with that very deliberate and ultimately huge chorus. To me, this one is in single territory. Afterending is a fabulous way to round out the album. It’s almost like an updated (and more resolved) version of Winterlovers with all the la laaaah stuff in there, and a tinge of The Everlasting to boot. It’s a beautiful song in its own right and takes you into “the abyss.”

Overall, it’s a good album that has its moments as every Manics album does. And it’s the latest in a line of experiments that I hope they take further in the next decade. My personal (and wholly unrealistic wish) is that they do an album that celebrates James love of Russian Circles.
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  #44  
Old 25-12-2021, 08:48
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim View Post
Still a sublime sounding duet for me after this many times hearing it but i wonder if it'll be a traci lords situation and she never sings it with them live. At least i think she never sung with them live? Pretty sure she didn't. That'd be a damn shame but also a part of me likes that it'll forever only exist as a gem on the album.
I wonder if it wasn't for covid putting the brakes on international touring for bands, whether the TUVL tour would have had Sunflower Bean as support with Julia joining them onstage for a few songs.

I'd have been into that.
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  #45  
Old 28-01-2022, 02:04
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Heard this album tonight beginning to end. It’s an unbelievably strong album, at least for fans of the band. The Melodie’s are quite infectious. No skips. Sapporo is definitely the highlight in this album - shame it wasn’t a “single”, with the late 90s/early 2000’s meaning of that. Absolutely love it. Love the artwork, love the melancholy, love it all. I wish this band never stop making music.
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