Introduction

SIMPATICO (2006)
1) Blackened Blue Eyes; 2) NYC (There's No Need To Stop); 3) For Your Entertainment; 4) Dead Man's Eye; 5) Muddy Ground; 6) City Of The Dead; 7) Road To Paradise; 8) When The Lights Go Out In London; 9) The Architect; 10) Glory Glory; 11) Sunset & Vine.
Many people rate this album as the absolute nadir of The Charlatans' career, and I think I can see why — for the first time ever, they sound hopelessly lost. They clearly want more change, and can find none. Return to their Madchester roots? Even for the oh-so-permissively eclectic 21st century, that's a bit of a stretch. Go on post-modernizing Bob Dylan and his peers? They have probably taken all the ridicule they could with this schtick. Try that smooth'n'sexy falsetto dance vibe of Wonderland one more time? Now that the world has got Franz Ferdinand, who the heck would need the feeble shadow of The Charlatans?...
Up At The Lake seemed like a breather, an album made on-the-spot without too much thought behind it, and perhaps too many people noticed it, because on their next record, the band goes for a louder, more in-yer-face sound — and it is strangely ineffective. The first track is arguably the best one: ʽBlackened Blue Eyesʼ opens with a nervously paranoid piano riff, explosive guitar whippings, and dramatic synthesized strings to announce personal tragedy ("and there won't be a dry eye in the house tonight!", proclaims one of the least tear-inducing frontmen in Britpop his­tory, although he does mean that ironically). There's a bit of a "New Romantic" flavor to the track, but with solid melodic hooks and crunchy production, that is actually a plus. But after that, things start getting really messy.
The dance-rock novelty number ʽNYC (There's No Need To Stop)ʼ sounds like a ridiculously cocky attempt to write something in between classic Blondie and modern Franz Ferdinand, with neither the bitter humor of the former or the hip modernity of the latter. It is a strange number, yet it is still miles above their several attempts to incorporate ska and reggae elements into their music: ʽFor Your Entertainmentʼ, ʽCity Of The Deadʼ, ʽRoad To Paradiseʼ, ʽThe Architectʼ — somebody must have been on a serious diet of Bob Marley, Madness, and UB40 to get all that stuff on the album, and while I would not go as far as to call the results awful, they are pretty un­remarkable. When you get ska riffs, deep bass vocal harmonies, and a not-too-convincing howl of "it's burning, burning love in the city of the dead!", the results are stuck exactly midway between comic and tragic, and the song becomes ineffective.
Elsewhere, the album fluctuates between slow, power-chord driven pop-rock (ʽDead Man's Eyeʼ), banal trip-hop (ʽMuddy Groundʼ), and exercises in modernized rootsiness (the gospel-stylized ʽGlory Gloryʼ). None of these are interesting in any particular way — the only good thing I can say is that everything is played in an atmosphere of tired resignation: "I sit on the muddy ground, waiting for you... I'm still waiting for you" describes the general mood of the record pretty fine. Maybe this is why they went for reggae — the sounds of the oppressed and humiliated ones. The problem is, it is hard for me to sympathize with the plight of a band as mediocre as The Charla­tans, especially when they tackle styles where almost everything depends on personal charisma rather than notes and chords.
The fascination with reggae is this time reflected even in the closing instrumental, ʽSunset & Vineʼ, which at least gets a fun moody keyboard theme, but otherwise reads like an exercise in breaking the barriers between reggae and adult contemporary. On the whole, it is probably a suitable ending for such a limp and tired record — and this definition does not so much contradict its previously mentioned loud, in-yer-face nature as render it meaningless. Here, they're loud and powerless. The songs aren't hopeless — they are just deadly boring.
YOU CROSS MY PATH (2008)
1) Oh! Vanity; 2) Bad Days; 3) Mis-Takes; 4) The Misbegotten; 5) A Day For Letting Go; 6) You Cross My Path; 7) Missing Beats; 8) My Name Is Despair; 9) Bird; 10) This Is The End; 11*) Blank Heart, Blank Mind; 12*) Set Me Free.
It is unfair to say that by the mid-2000s, the world did not need The Charlatans any more: even Simpatico, despite the fairly obvious dip in quality, still hit No. 10 on the British charts, indica­ting that the band had become fairly institutionalized, a «second-rate legend» that could, from now on, never worry about starving as long as they periodically reminded the world of their exis­tence. From that point of view, their next move towards the world was actually quite bold: You Cross My Path, their tenth studio LP, was made freely available as a digital download for a few months, before getting a physical CD release. Of course, nasty tongues said this was merely to draw some much-needed public attention to their wrinkled asses, but hey, at least it was a safer and nobler trick than drowning one of the band's members in a swimming pool or something. The album did only reach No. 39 on the charts as a result, though.
And this time, things were back to positively normal. No more fiddling around with reggae or other musical genres that The Charlatans felt uncomfortable with — You Cross My Path is just a through-and-through modern pop record, nothing less, nothing more. Distorted power-pop guitars, classic keyboards, straightforward 4/4 beats, disillusioned love lyrics, the works. The whole thing is even more simple and streamlined than Up At The Lake, since the band tends to stay away from funkiness this time around, and makes not the slightest pretense of appealing to contemporary dance crowds: you can dance to most of these tunes, but essentially this is an album to be enjoyed alone in the dark. Or, perhaps, not enjoyed, but merely taken into considera­tion, because the songs are... guess what... not very interesting.
Once again, the listener's general feel towards the record will most likely be determined by the feel towards the opening track. ʽOh! Vanityʼ tells what looks to be a personal message (using a posh-poseur interface to deal with life's troubles? something like that) to a steady beat, a modestly catchy (but very quiet) organ riff, and through Tim Burgess' usual colorless vocals. Again, this is a good song that I wish I could get more excited about, but all the standard blocks apply. Not even the weird talkbox-like keyboard solo can properly save the day: there is not a single ingre­dient here that gets the blood boiling, and Tim's singing nearly puts me to sleep.
The worst thing about it all, perhaps, is that with each passing year The Charlatans find themselves tighter and tighter in the grip of depression, and a mediocre depressing band goes far harsher on one's feelings than a mediocre cheerful one. Titles like ʽMissing Beats (Of A Genera­tion)ʼ are pretty self-explanatory, but even if Tim Burgess' mopey mix of nostalgia and disillu­sionment is technically more realistic and closer to the ground than, say, Robert Smith's end-of-the-world apocalyptic rantings, how could I prefer the former over the latter when the form in which this mix is presented is so sterile? The guitar churns out a monotonously quiet syncopated rhythm, the organ whines out the same repetitive chords, the expressionless chorus winds on and on and on, and the entire band, even if it may have written a potentially promising song, just sounds terminally bored doing it.
On the whole, the record is far more consistent than its predecessor, simply because it makes no stupid suicidal risks, but it does not have even one song of the ʽBlackened Blue Eyesʼ caliber. The only potential standout is ʽMy Name Is Despairʼ, when the band slows down, puts tons of echo on the drums and vocals, throws in a bunch of heavy piano chords, and makes a sort of tribute to Joy Division (the vocals, in particular, briefly remind me of ʽI Remember Nothingʼ). Maybe if the organ weren't so inconveniently happy-sounding, and if the vocalist were closer to Ian Curtis or Jim Morrison, it would have worked. As it is, it is only on the verge of working, lacking that special something which separates professional craft from great art.
And it is true, I cannot deny the professional craft: with decades of experience behind them and a solid sense of taste that had only very rarely let them down, The Charlatans have reached a stage here where they would be capable of effortlessly making «non-bad» records for several more decades to come. Problem is, no matter how much you listen to such records, there is very little chance that any subtle charming nuances — the only ones that make B-grade art worth returning to — are going to jump out at you and make you re-evaluate the whole thing.
WHO WE TOUCH (2010)
1) Love Is Ending; 2) My Foolish Pride; 3) Your Pure Soul; 4) Smash The System; 5) Intimacy; 6) Sincerity; 7) Trust In Desire; 8) When I Wonder; 9) Oh!; 10) You Can Swim / On The Threshold / Sing The Body Eclectic.
Good question, boys; although it may be worth noting that this record charted much higher than its predecessor, and on the whole, commercial fortunes of The Charlatans in the 2010s have shown a steady increase compared to the fairly unhappy 2000s. One could argue that by 2010, The Charlatans, like most formerly famous Britpop bands that managed to clench their teeth and survive, had simply passed into «semi-legendary» status — that in their native homeland, people simply buy up Charlatans records like they'd buy up Paul McCartney and Rolling Stones records, without even giving them much of a listen. But wouldn't that be too much honor for these guys? Then again, the idea of a good Charlatans single might have gotten heavily ingrained in the sub­conscious of the average 1990s teenager...
...anyway, this is all pointless digression. Who We Touch is a nicely polished record of catchy, polite, not particularly exciting alt-pop tunes. Curiously, they chose Youth (Martin Glover) as their producer this time, so feel free to pick on similarities with The Verve, or Embrace, or what­ever other alt-rock group he produced — the problem is, whatever The Charlatans used to be, they just aren't that any more. Most importantly, Tony Rogers' organ has been pushed so low in the mix that they have lost this last trademark of their original sound. Instead, emphasis is placed on multi-tracked vocals, multi-tracked acoustic and electric guitars, synthesized and (occasionally) non-synthesized strings, in short, anything to get these guys a massive wall of sound that will make them sound loud, proud, and completely anonymous.
The songs are not bad, though; I'd say they are doing something on the level of classic Ash now, and while I'm not a fan of either, this is far from the worst pop-rock produced in that period. It's all about catchy choruses now, and many of them are in good taste — as long as you have the patience to sit through the opener, ʽLove Is Endingʼ, where the chugging alt-rock guitar drone pretty much kills off any attempt to make its chorus into anything special. It is just one of those generic tunes, you know, that justify the entire «guitar rock is on its way out» approach.
But ʽMy Foolish Prideʼ, coming right on its heels, is a big improvement. With pianos and strings taking the place of big bad guitars, it manages to create just the right atmosphere of tenderness and repentance in the chorus. The decision to culminate each chorus with the acappella delivery of the line "make love, not war" is questionable, but since it comes right after the Beatlesque descending line of "sweet emissary tapping at my door", I guess we can forgive it even if we disagree with it. Here, then, is a nice side effect of The Charlatans aging and getting more senti­mental and self-critical — they become capable of occasional moments of touching beauty, even if they do tend to get unnoticed behind the regular veil of mediocrity. (Frankly, there is nothing in this song beyond the chorus that is salvageable).
Whatever happens after these two not-so-far-removed extremes falls somewhere in between, and, frankly, does not deserve lengthy discussions. Personally, I fall asleep now whenever they try to recapture a bit of that old funk vibe (ʽYour Pure Soulʼ), get positively offended when they slap the title ʽSmash The Systemʼ onto a song that has nothing to do with Rage Against The Machine, but come alive again for ʽIntimacyʼ and ʽSincerityʼ: the former is a slightly mystical, somewhat Roxy Music / ABC-inspired decadent power ballad, the latter a fast and tightly focused pop-rocker with retro-futuristic synths and a cool shout-out chorus — a successful completion of the task initiated and provisionally failed with ʽLove Is Endingʼ. As the album nears the end, though, it begins to bog down again, particularly with the interminable ballad ʽOh!ʼ and the droning atmospheric mood piece ʽYou Can Swimʼ (whose entire melodic base is more in line with blowing bubbles at the bottom of the swimming pool rather than actually swimming).
Adding insult to injury, the band ends up proceedings with a hidden track that consists of perfor­mance artist Penny Rimbaud delivering a lengthy lyrical piece to a repetitive, quasi-Gothic musi­cal background. I have nothing against the art of Penny Rimbaud (of which, admittedly, I know quite little, since beat poetry is not really my thing), but I have no idea why he has to be featured on a Charlatans record rather than, say, a Patti Smith one. Isn't it too late for these guys to buy up creed from aging beatniks, anyway? This could never be a good idea, let alone the fact of its total incompatibility with the bulk of this fairly normal pop record. Admittedly, it is a hidden track, so it is legitimate for us to pretend it does not exist.
The good news, therefore, is that The Charlatans have tightened up their craft, and are now pro­ducing a conveyer line of pop songs, some of which might even stick in your head. The bad news is that, well, just about anybody could have done this record, given a skilful producer and a few years of musical expertise behind their backs. The surprising news is how they persist — five LPs over ten years? in the twenty-first century? this kind of tenaciousness is bound to get you somewhere — I mean, look at Brian Jonestown Massacre, for instance, where every once in a while Anton Newcombe comes out with a masterpiece, stuck between several pieces of utter boredom. And so, at the expense of a complete loss of identity, Who We Touch is probably their best offering since Wonderland, though still not worthy of a thumbs up, in my opinion.
MODERN NATURE (2015)
1) Talking In Tones; 2) So Oh; 3) Come Home Baby; 4) Keep Enough; 5) In The Tall Grass; 6) Emilie; 7) Let The Good Times Be Never Ending; 8) I Need You To Know; 9) Lean In; 10) Trouble Understanding; 11) Lot To Say; 12*) We Sleep On Borrowed Time; 13*) Walk With Me; 14*) As Long As You Stick By Me; 15*) I Will Never Leave You (demo).
Time takes its toll even on such indefatigable grunts as The Charlatans, as it took them a whole three years after the release of Who We Touch to reconvene for their next sessions — and then the creative process was delayed by the gruesome death of yet another band member, this time, drummer Jon Brookes, succumbing to brain cancer at the age of 44. The natural conclusion is that this is why Modern Nature sounds so gloomy; however, if I understand correctly, many of the songs had been written already before Jon's death, and it is not a given that the record would have a merrier vibe to it, had their old pal lived.
It does, perhaps, explain why the record has such a crappy drum sound throughout — for one thing, this is the first time ever that they rely so heavily on drum machines, and second, there is no less than four different guest drummers trying to fill Jon's shoes, including New Order's Stephen Morris on one track and Verve's Peter Salisbury on a bunch of others: all of them are there to lend a hand, but none of them has any incentive to sound perfectly in touch with the rest of the band. Admittedly, though, it's not as if the band were using them for particularly fabulous material, so no hard feelings.
As sorry as I am for such an awfully premature death, I am not going to pretend that the grim, gray vibe of Modern Nature is particularly effective on my feelings. The Charlatans had been getting grimmer and grimmer as the 2000s rolled by, and this record takes them as far as they can possibly go in that respect. Generally slow tempos, minor keys, dark mournful basslines, lots of funereal synthesizers, and a lead vocalist who had rarely managed to sound exciting when he tried to sound exciting — and now he has just as much trouble convincing me that he has finally placed the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. It goes without saying that «hooks» are among the last objects of thought on this record.
Basically, this is just a set of moody adult contemporary tunes: you do not need to go further than the first thirty seconds of ʽTalking In Tonesʼ to decide whether you are going to like this record or not. The bass sets a minimal tombstone-oriented groove, the barely audible organ sounds like part of an inobtrusive funeral liturgy, the vocals sound dead and bored. All the ingredients to drown you in a sea of sorrow are there, but seem way past expiration date. And the same mood permeates all of the first half of the record. The dreary gray clouds begin to slightly disperse with the arrival of ʽLet The Good Times Be Never Endingʼ, a fast, funky, and self-ironic (which is already evident by the way its title contrasts with its grim mood) rocker whose chief fault is overstaying its welcome by about 2-3 minutes; but even though it is followed by a couple more relatively upbeat numbers, the irreparable damage has already been done.
Bottomline: just as The Charlatans had been mediocre in portraying youthful excitement and exuberance, just as they had been mediocre in portraying sarcasm and Dylanesque haughtiness, so are they mediocre in their portrayal of deep human tragedy. How could I ever explain this? I have no idea. I am simply amazed at how well they know every single trick (they must have studied their Floyd, Cure, and Radiohead by heart), and at how inept they end up sounding when they try using any of these tricks. Everything is right — but nothing works. Thumbs down.
DIFFERENT DAYS (2017)
1) Hey Sunrise; 2) Solutions; 3) Different Days; 4) Future Tense; 5) Plastic Machinery; 6) The Forgotten One; 7) Not Forgotten; 8) There Will Be Chances; 9) Over Again; 10) The Same House; 11) Let's Go Together; 12) The Setting Sun; 13) Spinning Out.
In this chapter of their life story, The Charlatans go on to discover the meaning of life. Well, maybe not quite, but they sure sound like they had some serious revelations about the place they occupy in this universe of ours, and they want to share this experience with us. On their previous couple of albums, they had exchanged the liveliness and friendly aggression of their youth for somber soberness; with Different Days, they take another step forward and re-introduce them­selves as That One So Much Older And Wiser Band, one that might be willing to share a life philosophy with their listeners, inviting them to slow down, sit down, cool down, and perhaps even bow down to the words and the sounds of the wise.
Sure enough, there's no harm in hearing a band with an almost 30-year long career (has it really been that long now?) give a couple of life lessons, even if this surmises a partial transformation into Pink Floyd, a band that has, up to now, never been among The Charlatans' primary influen­ces. But given everything that we know about The Charlatans, chances of their producing some sort of masterpiece, «finding themselves» after all those years of (way too frequently fruitless) searching, are slim — and already the first couple of tracks are quite telling. As their main sonic base, they have chosen a slow, trip-hoppy rhythmic pattern, largely dependent on keyboards and acoustic guitars; at the same time, Tim Burgess is now singing in a weary, colorless, «serious» manner that completely neutralizes his vocals (I think that most of the time they are also multi-tracked and/or compressed, to the effect of losing even the few tiny droplets of personality that they ever possessed).
The results are predictably dull. ʽHey Sunriseʼ begins like a song that is supposed to go some­where: with its fussy, repetitive acoustic rhythm track and half-whispered vocals, you keep waiting for some development, preferably a build-up to a mighty chorus or something, yet you get nothing — apparently, that quiet chug and lulling whisper are considered to be the main attrac­tion of the song, and the only development is a bedrock of cheap synths, gradually revealed over four minutes. Considering that the band often likes to place its best material at the beginning of the album, ʽHey Sunriseʼ is a fairly gloomy indication of what's to come.
For extra seriousness' sake, the songs are joined to each other via occasional sound links — deep-sounding poetic lines about the past, the present, and the future, or, in one case, a female Japanese voiceover because, you know, where would we be without female Japanese voiceovers in 2017? Frankly, I have no interest in checking out who is participating in these sound links and why, because the songs that they link together consistently suck. Track after track, it's the same gray atmosphere of trip-hop rhythms, acoustic guitars, boring keyboards and depersonalized vocals, and the best I can say is that some of the songs, like the title track, have catchy choruses. But what good are catchy choruses if the band that plays them sounds like a bunch of robots?
I almost get to like ʽNot Forgottenʼ, because it has a tiny trace of the self-righteous anger that, in the past, used to drag The Charlatans out of the ditch when everything else failed. But even that one, once it gets to the chorus, is not able to get past one angry line and a bunch of supportive woo-woos — it's like they want to get angry, but are completely stuck in MOR limbo. In despe­ration, they end up falling back on pop clichés of the 1980s — ʽThe Same Houseʼ, with its cloying synthesizer loops and android chorus mantras ("we can live in the same house, we can all wear matching shoes!") sounds like a generic happy-ironic pop hit from one of those mid-1980s bands whose names I can never remember, but since it has neither the freshness nor the humor of any of those hits (things that could artistically save at least some of them), I can only qualify it as a nostalgic embarrassment.
Bottomline: if these guys have any intention to be really taken seriously, they have to start popping some serious youth pills, or at least get their Prozac prescriptions in order, because grim, gray, moody, melancholic Charlatans pass way below the radar, much lower than bright, lively, sarcastic, funky Charlatans. Note that I have not even begun talking about the lyrics — because, honestly, when the music is so dull, there is not the least incentive to care about the words, no matter which ʽsolutionsʼ they are advertising for, or whether ʽthere will be chancesʼ of their admonitions and revelations making solid sense. Thumbs down again.

Part 7. Recent Developments (1998-2016)

CAMERA OBSCURA



BIGGEST BLUEST HI-FI (2001)
1) Happy New Year; 2) Eighties Fan; 3) Houseboat; 4) Shine Like A New Pin; 5) Pen And Notebook; 6) Swimming Pool; 7) Anti-Western; 8) Let's Go Bowling; 9) I Don't Do Crowds; 10) The Sun On His Back; 11) Double Feature; 12) Arrangements Of Shapes And Space.
Although Camera Obscura got their cozy little break largely through the endorsement of Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, to whose music they have been compared ever since, the band itself actually formed in the exact same year as Belle & Sebastian — they just had to wait five years be­fore being offered a record contract. Maybe the formation was a direct consequence of the ef­fect that Tigermilk had on fellow Glaswegians, or maybe it just so happened that in 1996, Glas­gow was hit by a melancholia-radiating beam from outer space, but, whatever the circumstances, here we are with yet another sweet, sad, and fragile indie pop outfit on our hands.
If anything, you could think of it as the time-required female counterpart response to Belle & Se­bastian. In the place of Stuart Murdoch, we have Tracyanne Campbell, a slightly autistic / som­nambulist soul with a sweet, instantaneously likable voice, a hipster-approved penchant for all things retro, and a deep love for cleanly produced guitar sounds (everything from acoustic strum to electric jangle) and chamber music string arrangements, which Murdoch is only too happy to help her arrange. She writes all the songs, sings on most of them, and plays rhythm guitar, which more or less saves us the trouble of memorizing the names of five other people in the band, but for the sake of fairness, let us also mention second guitarist Kenny McKeeve, whose plinking Fenders and minstrelish mandolins are just as responsible for the overall effect.
First things first: there may actually be a substantial reason why Camera Obscura had to search so long for a record contract — unlike Murdoch, Campbell is not a naturally gifted songwriter. She is quite good at expressing her feelings, but not at converting them into exceptional chord se­quences or vocal hooks. Three or four listens into the album, and I was still unable to tell any of the songs apart, even if the actual melodies, tempos, and arrangements do have slight differences. Everything seems centered around the lyrics — the words seem well thought-out, whereas most of the melodies sound like they were quickly tossed off on the spot (rather odd for a band who had spent five years working out their schtick before finally crossing the studio threshold).
Second, the atmosphere is certainly not unique. The Belle & Sebastian comparison naturally comes to mind first, even without knowing how tight the real connection is; but really, there are dozens of twee-pop outfits out there that sound very close to Camera Obscura, and unless you are able to figure out that particularly subtle special something that makes the art of Tracyanne Campbell hit its very own nerve, this music will never be worth a second replay to you. (As a ready-made example, the arrival of Allo Darlin' in 2010, with its own retro-favoring, graciously fragile lead­ing lady Elizabeth Morris, put the reputational future of Camera Obscura in dire straits — at least, I have stumbled upon a few comparisons that were not particularly favorable towards the Glaswegian as pitted against the Australian).
But unique or not unique, I find the atmosphere all but impossible to dislike. Everything passes by like separate similar-themed movements of a single soundtrack to a forty-five minute early autumn walk through the park. Fresh breeze, chirping birdies, golden leaves, occasional joggers, carps in the pond, headphones, the works. Not a single «rough» moment on the album to pinch your emotions too hard, but that would only disrupt the pleasure of walking. Even the drummer makes sure to use as many brushes and soft cymbal tapping as possible so as not to make even the fastest songs on here «rock» in any possible manner: Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi is a gentle mood shot for all those who aren't too much in a hurry.
Campbell's style is certainly melancholic, but still, much lighter than that of Murdoch — prima­rily because the music of Camera Obscura is generally free of the bitterness and poorly concealed anger at the world that permeates Murdoch's art. The lyrics, naturally, are mostly about relation­ships, failed or holding, but they never get judgemental or out-of-hand. The singing shows no range whatsoever (sometimes it feels as if she's packing everything into one note, let alone one octave), but whatever tone there is, it feels completely natural, a special sort of «cool, but warm» intonation that suggests friendliness and loneliness at the same time. And McKeeve's little lead melodies, ringing out in the background, suit that tone perfectly.
Individual songs are not worth discussing; the only thing I can say is that the music is very much improved when there is a steady mid-tempo rhythm section pushing it forward (ʽShine Like A New Pinʼ, ʽSwimming Poolʼ, ʽI Don't Do Crowdsʼ, etc.), and tends to get very boring on slow-moving acoustic ballads like ʽLet's Go Bowlingʼ, no matter how many cool references to Clark Gable she inserts in those lyrics (although, of course, if the song helped even one fan to go see a Clark Gable movie, the album's rating has to be pushed up for educational value). The final num­ber is a waltzing instrumental that tries to go out with a bang, adding an unexpected outburst of colorfully distorted «acid» guitars — bit of a cherry on the tart for those who like their indie pop with a psychedelic flavor, but, of course, much too late to drag the record out of its «background muzak» state, and besides, who of us could be overwhelmed with a simple spiralling psychedelic waltz in 2001, when it'd been thirty years ago today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?
To conclude this with a brief title discussion, the album is indeed hi-fi (fortunately for us all, Camera Obscura care about sonic hygiene), but the «biggest» and «bluest» bits are self-ag­gran­dizing hyperbolic tricks — this music isn't particularly blue («autumn gold» is much more like it), and it certainly isn't big. And these are the good points, because big and blue tend to sound fake these days, whereas Camera Obscura sound sincere and likeable. I do not remember how even a single song goes on the album, but I still give it a thumbs up for sheer therapy effect. A pretty good record to play if you're in the mood of killing someone.