Jud Vandy, a talented musician from Cornwall could easily be seen as the musical version of Marmite, I myself could happily see why someone wouldn’t understand his musical exploits while at the same time I could happily nod my head towards anyone who called him a genius. His first album ‘Children Lost In Fantasy Part One‘ wowed me into acclaim from the first moment I heard it, but follow up ‘Children Lost In Fantasy Part Two‘ has taken many weeks of continuous listens just for me to write a review that I feel does both me and the album justice.
Opening track ‘Through Walls‘ starts brilliantly with a dark daunting guitar melody before moving into avant indie guitar territory that we may have come to expect from Minus The Bear which creates the fast paced vocal tempo for the verse encouraging you lyrically to break free of your restraints before the slow, mysterious and haunting feel of the chorus, ‘Through Walls‘ works the pop song structure brilliantly keeping you on your toes with clever changes in tempo’s and a flux of ideas. Other stand out track ‘A Heaven Spared‘ is built around a screeching and almost unlistenable distorted guitar tone made tolerable by guitar hooks and an electronic sound driven by programmed drumming while Jud Vandy’s vocals resemble that of Kele from Bloc Party. ‘Rendition‘ begins with some glorious lead guitar work that instantly makes it like-able in my ears and sets it apart from most tracks on the record by forcing its way into my skull and staying there, forcing me to want to listen to it, if there is one track that I would use to attempt to get people to buy this record then ‘Rendition‘ would be that, I just can’t describe my feelings towards how fantastic this track is. ‘Scarecrow‘ almost made it onto my list of tracks that really shouldn’t have made it onto the album but the song, sounding like an out of tune The Beatles on acid has some really nice touches on it, especially the vocal over-dubs towards the middle of the track making it well worth a listen.
The problem with ‘Children Lost In Fantasy Part Two‘ ultimately is that there are too many songs on the record. It is quantity over quality to a degree and some tracks feel like they don’t belong on the record and their inclusion stops the album from flowing progressively. ‘Arrival‘ is a pointless thirty second interval that just doesn’t work, ‘Misery Of The Dull Opportuniy‘ has this distorted almost punk feel to it that while is great, especially lyrically, it just doesn’t sit well with the dark, twisted electronic sound of the rest of the record, while final track ‘The Saint‘ is a lo-fi minimal guitar and vocals track that doesn’t click with the production of the rest of the album (which is fantastic by the way) and once again, doesn’t sit well with the musical direction of the album, and these are three of maybe five or six examples I could have mentioned which would have brought the album to a twelve or thirteen track release which would have made reviewing this album at least, a less daunting experience.
The talent of Jud Vandy is clear to hear, who beside the odd few guest appearances by local musicians, wrote and recorded this record all by himself but sometimes I wish that rather than being hugely original, he would take the more mainstream elements of his music and mix them with some of the nicer touches on this record to create a huge product that is listenable on a larger scale rather than just from a niche audience. ‘Children Lost In Fantasy Part Two‘ is definitely worth a listen if you are into the darker side of guitar or electronic music.
[Rating: 3]
