Back in March or so I thought to myself that ‘Once More From The Top’ was a record so far out of kilter with any kind of fashionable ‘scene’ that it would surely be destined for immeasurable success and glory, or doomed to the obscurity of the dreaded ‘cult status’, only to be ‘rediscovered’ and dusted off twenty years hence and proclaimed as a lost masterpiece. By year’s end I’m still not entirely certain what the world outside of the Unpopular universe has made of the record, but either way I’m here now (and fate willing in twenty years time) to say that it is indeed a masterpiece of a record.
You may be aware of previous records by The Granite Shore from this advent series.’Tomorrow Morning, 3 a.m.’ featured in 2009 whilst ‘Flood Of Fortune’ cropped up a year later. Both those singles gave glimpses of the magically madcap album that Occultation label boss Nick Halliwell and his band of merry pranksters might have in them. And whilst it may have taken a few more years to appear than some of us might have hoped, ‘Once More From The Top’ certainly has not disappointed.
Now Halliwell is unashamedly a words man, and the importance of language is focused by the voice being unrepentantly high in the mix. It takes a little getting used to, particularly since Halliwell, whilst in possession of great vocal idiosyncrasies, is not a typically gifted singer. That said, fans of just-ever-so-off-kilter vocalists will find no problems and will quickly warm to his sonorous tones. Lyrically it is deft and delightful, certainly not poetry being shoehorned into Pop, but rather, to paraphrase Taylor Parkes, Pop being angled just right so it slots neatly into poetry. And even that’s not quite right because in fact it more like Pop being tilted just so, such that it sweetly dovetails with prose-poetry. Of course if I suggest Baudelaire as a reference you will likely think me pretentious and silly and you might be right, and yet, and yet - there is a tint of that glorious romantic vision at work here (“j’aime les nuages… les nuages qui passent… là-bas… là-bas… les merveilleux nuages!”).
With Halliwell’s songs exquisitely coloured in by a band of accomplished musicians from the likes of Distractions, June Brides and Wild Swans, ‘Once More From The Top’ is by turns magnificent, self-indulgent folly and remarkably accomplished masterpiece. The two are not incompatible.
Buy ‘Once More From The Top’ from the Occultation Records website.
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