Nouvelle Vague laid out their stall precisely right from the off with their eponymous debut twenty years and haven't really altered their product, pitch or delivery one iota.Perhaps youmight quibble. But let's face it. They're hardly The Beatles in terms of their quest for growth and change.
They have a new album called Should I Stay Or Should I Go just out with arch cocktail bar takes on Punk, Post Punk and New Wave favourites and incredibly it doesn't sound tired just yet which is credit to them. Not to my ears anyhow. I loved listening through to it this morning
They keep things fresh, teasing out the camp. ludicrous quality of faves like What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend and People Are People while retaining an inner respect for what great songs they are too. Sometimes the recasting of things so essentially familiar is quite startling and it takes you a while to even recognise what is being played. Here with their take on Atomic. Probably the stand out here.
It's a collection that makes listeners of a certain age revisit all their yesterdays and reflect on their feelings on a set of classics while appreciating their new settings .. it makes younger listeners probably wish they'd been around in the Eighties themselves. Trust me it wasn't as great as it might sound regardless of the music. It was a horrible and regrettable decade in many ways. I was there. Its true history is yet to be written. I'm not even going there.
There are some interesting takes on forgotten songs. I particularly liked the remodelling of She's In Parties a Bauhaus oddity I hadn't thought about in years . Also a version of Associates Breakfast which is an exercise in the most exquisite melodrama. I recommend this to readers of a certain age but also to younger ones. This made my Friday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment