For me to sanction a review of a record an entire month after release, it has to be something pretty damn special. And PREGOBLIN‘s new album (well, actually, their debut, despite the title) very much fits into that category.
The opening track ‘Big Hitters‘ sounds a little like Beck has written a song for All Things Must Pass and got Steve Harley in on guest vocals. That should tell you all you need to know about PREGOBLIN II – it’s a real ‘songwriter’s album’, though the subsequent ‘Roma‘ is somewhat dramatic and off-kilter in its oeuvre. That unpredictable nature is one of the long player’s great selling points, with the double header of ‘Everybody’s Ill (At The Moment)‘ starting as a kind of alt.folk on part one, and then evolving into a full-blown disco soul stomp for part two. You never know what’s coming next and I love that!
The overtly sexual nature of ‘Movin’ Up‘ makes it sound like it could have come straight out of Rado & Ragni’s 1968 musical Hair, albeit with a bastardised piano ballad backdrop that isn’t a million miles away from Rufus Wainwright. And then comes that hard-hitting ‘Nobody Likes Me‘, which, to the casual listener, comes across as a pleasant, breezy Donna Summer-ish number (sort of), until you pay attention to the lyrics: “Mummy doesn’t like me, daddy doesn’t care, Becky doesn’t miss me, Claire thinks I’m a shit” and later on, “Everybody’s got better shit than me.” Ouch.
A bizarre cover of Oliver Cheatham‘s ‘Get Down Saturday Night’ (or, more accurately, of Room 5‘s adaptation of it, ‘Make Luv‘) ensues, with a ‘3am sleeping under the bus shelter’ kind of vibe before the brief respite of the gorgeous pedal-steel Americana of ‘Alpha Business‘ proves that yes, Alex Sebley is capable of writing irresistibly dreamy commercial tracks as well, further confirmed by ‘These Hands aka Danny Knife‘, originally penned for Fat White Family, which features Pete Doherty and surely would have featured on one of those old Indie Top 20 albums, had they still been going. Delightfully minimalist but full of joyful uplift.
‘Sort It Out Down There‘ comes across as deliberately obtuse, as though Jona Lewie got pissed and passive-aggressively disagreed with the bartender, before the amusing, sleepy Summertime demeanour of the Super Furries like ‘Wimpy‘.
‘Two Kinds Of Music‘ closes out the album (“one is good, the other is bad” apparently), aside from a piano-based reprise of the opening track, a rather striking, pretty version, which makes you look back and marvel at the variety on offer here.
A very unusual record, but ultimately a very satisfying one.
