Thursday, 25 March 2010

‘Fanfare For The Comic Muse’ by The Divine Comedy

Long before The Divine Comedy achieved any kind of success, they released ‘Fanfare For The Comic Muse’. Not only is this their debut album, it is a complete anomaly in terms of their back catalogue, recorded when the band was a three piece. Neil Hannon would start from scratch after this, recording on his own, then eventually building a band around him.

As a result of this historical manoeuvring, ‘Fanfare’ is more or less disowned by Hannon now, and it’s easy to hear why. It’s not that great. It’s a much rougher affair than anything which would follow, and it lacks both the subtlety and flair that ‘Liberation’ and then ‘Promenade’ would have.

Despite that, it has some worthwhile elements. Even at this stage, Hannon’s talents as both a lyricist and composer are starting to emerge. Though there are no classics on this album, there are a number of tracks that indicate that better things were to follow. And so there were.

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