Albums of The Year # 6 Cornershop - England is a Garden

 

Wonderful to see the return of Cornershop, particularly given that they do so with an a record as excellent and pertinent as England is a Garden, their ninth album in all since 1994.

In many respects they're the most unlikely and remarkable of survivors. You wouldn't have imagined them much longevity when they first emerged as a slightly ramshackle Indie outfit way back then. That they've done so is tribute to the remarkably durable friendship of main players Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayers as well as the powerful, distinctive nature of their vision.

Cornershop have long built their songs on a particularly English brand of nostalgia. Theirs is a Seventies childhood of K-Tel, Glam, children's television and toys, sweets and yes the corner shop, generally run by a Pakistani or Indian family willing to open up on a Sundays when everything else remained closed.

Fast forward to 2020 and Brexit Britain, something that could easily and justifiably be construed as an act of kneejerk reaction to the melting pot multicultural society we find ourselves in. England is a Garden is undoubtedly comment on this and it's tribute to the band that they keep things so upbeat and buoyant, even tossing off a glorious hit single from another universe in Everywhere That Wog Army Roam, (don't see that getting much radio play), that manages to be utterly joyous whilst outlining a litany of violent institutionalised racism going back decades.

This is a gorgeous bunch of songs, with an utterly sparkling set of melodies, possibly the band's finest since their breakthrough, 1997's When I Was Born For The Seventh Time. Everything is flecked with sitars, tablas and the funkiest of flutes. T.Rex, The Velvet Underground, The Beatles, Trojan Records, early Seventies Pop and left wing political activism come together to the most thrilling effect. All the while things are kept ticking over by Singh's inspired and inimitable beat commentary.

It's all immediatly recognisable, none of these songs could be anyone but Cornershop, so distinctly have they constructed and cultivated their sensibility over the years. It's good to see that not only have they not mellowed a jot over time, they still have no truck with racists, reactionaries or boobies, but that they're also in such fine shape as they make their way into their fourth decade. Altogether terrific.