‘Friends’ by The Beach Boys

‘Friends’ was the fourteenth album by The Beach Boys. By the time of its release, ‘Pet Sounds’ had been and gone, and the band were fumbling through records attempting to find greatness again. Following the oddness of ‘Smiley Smile’ and the more basic R ‘n’ B style of ‘Wild Honey’, ‘Friends’ seems to have no idea of what to aim for. It’s like a music collage of half formed ideas, and if you were so inclined, you could rip it to shreds more easily than virtually any other record in their catalogue so far.

Despite all this, it’s a strangely charming album that I’ve always enjoyed. It has enormous flaws, but some real highlights. ‘Meant For You’ is barely worth mentioning – it’s barely a minute long, and is really little more than an intro. ‘Friends’, the title track, is next. It was the only single from the album (and really, the only track that could have conceivably been one), and it’s a rather gentle and understated track, but a lovely one all the same. It’s followed by ‘Wake The World’ and ‘Be Here In The Morning’, a pair of tracks which should have been brilliant, and probably would have been if the band had finished them. ‘When A Man Needs A Woman’ is next, and it’s a song that encapsulates the album brilliantly. On the surface, it’s rubbish, a shoddy backing track with ropey (and in some places, clearly unfinished) lyrics, and a pointless out-of-place Wurlitzer solo in the middle, but I defy you to listen to it without smiling. I can’t. ‘Passing By’ ends the first half with a forgettable, if pleasant Wilson-penned instrumental.

‘Anna Lee, the Healer’ has exceptionally clucky lyrics, and the verses are dreadful, but it’s redeemed by the harmonies in the chorus. ‘Little Bird’, Dennis Wilson’s first major writing contribution to the band’s output is a real highlight. It’s well crafted, and it suits his voice perfectly. The fact that Brian Wilson made major un-credited contributions to it don’t diminish its greatness. ‘Be Still’, also by Dennis, is less good, but a fascinating premonition of the direction of his writing. ‘Busy Doin’ Nothin’’ is Brian’s most overt contribution to the record. It’s a fascinating one, and more complex than it seems at first. Over a jazzy bossa-nova beat, Wilson outlines the contents of an uneventful day. Your first impression is that he’s coasting, almost insultingly, but actually, he fits his lyrics to the melody brilliantly, and there are some lovely lyrical touches sprinkled throughout. Compared to ‘Anna Lee’, for instance, it’s a work of lyrics genius. Then the woozy instrumental ‘Diamond Head’ brings the album to a close. Except it doesn’t. The final track on the album is ‘Transcendental Meditation’ Mike Love’s first attempt at using the band to advertise his passions. It’s inexcusably awful – a horrible discordant mess that has no business on any album, let alone one so delicate. I had to force myself to listen to it for this experience – normally, I don’t let the album play this far.

Somehow, despite it all, ‘Friends’ is one of my favourite Beach Boys albums, but if you’re not a fan, I’d approach it with extreme caution. You never know, though – perhaps you’ll love it…

‘Free All Angels’ by Ash

Ash are a funny old band. They’re a band with real strengths, but they never seem quite sure of what to do with them. Throughout their career, they’ve alternated between writing outstanding pop songs, and slightly middling rock – it’s as though they’ve never considered the pop stuff legitimate.

‘Free All Angels’ saw them swing in the pop direction, and as such, it’s an excellent album. Tracks like ‘Walking Barefoot’ and ‘Shining Light’ may seem lightweight to some, but they’re incredibly well written infectious tracks that you can’t fail to enjoy. From there on in, the album is sprinkled with tracks that maintain the standard – ‘Submission’, ‘Someday’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘There’s A Star’ in particular. Of the lighter stuff, only ‘Candy’ doesn’t quite measure up – as a song, it’s fine, but the Bacharach sample doesn’t sit very comfortably with it, and the song as a whole would probably have worked better standing on its own two feet.

Elsewhere, the band aim for heaver territory with less impressive results. ‘Burn Baby Burn’ is good and ‘Cherry Bomb’, ‘Pacific Palisades’ and ‘World Domination’ are fine, but ‘Shark’ and ‘Nicole’ add nothing to their surroundings.

None-the-less, the album as a whole works well, and stands the test of time comfortably.

‘Franz Ferdinand’ by Franz Ferdinand

It’s been a while since I listened to this, and it was a pleasure to do so. After the somewhat mixed ‘You Could Have It So Much Better’ and the downright disappointing ‘Tonight’, it’s easy to forget how excellent Franz Ferdinand’s debut was, and still is.

Track after track is played out with accessible ease. There are highlights – ‘Take Me Out’, ‘Dark Of The Matinee’, ‘Darts Of Pleasure’ and so on, but the rest of the songs maintain the quality they set. Even the more forgettable, or disposable tracks – ‘Cheating On You’, ‘Tell Her Tonight’ – earn their place by being tremendous fun, and almost revelling in their underdog status. A great album.

‘For Tinkerbell’ by Catatonia

One of those items that’s in my collection more or less by chance. I picked this up in Wales just as Catatonia were on the ascent in the rest of the UK. ‘For Tinkerbell’ was an early EP which I vaguely thought might turn into a collector’s item. It’s probably fair to say that that isn’t now the case.

In and of itself, it’s alright, in a ‘stretching your wings’ kind of way. ‘For Tinkberbell’ itself is a pleasant enough song, ‘New Mercurial Heights’ is a better one (though whether it’s good enough to sustain two versions within five tracks is debateable) and ‘Dimbran’ is also fine. All are a bit similar – a slightly murky backing track layered in jangly guitar, with Cerys Matthew’s voice providing the main point of interest. ‘Sweet Catatonia’ is the low point. The song itself is fine, but this version is slow to the point of tedium, lacking any energy that would make it worthwhile.

Three of these tracks would find their way onto Catatonia’s debut album, all re-recorded and improved, thus rendering this record entirely pointless. I guess you win some, you lose some.

‘Folklore’ by Nelly Furtardo

‘Folklore’ is an interesting album. Sandwiched between Furtardo’s fist album of pop and third album of R and B, ‘Folklore’ fits into neither category. It also struggles to fit into a category of it’s own. It starts brilliantly – ‘One Trick Pony’ is a riotous blend of fiddle, mandolin, banjo, layered vocals, and who knows what else, ‘Powerless’ continues in a similar vein, and ‘Explode’ adds a thumping rhythm. By the end of the anthemic ‘Try’, the fourth track, everything seems set for a classic album. Even the lesser ‘Fresh Off The Boat’ and ‘Forca’ can be excused – they’re not as good, but they’re still ambitious.

The tone changes after this, however. ‘The Grass Is Green’ and ‘Picture Perfect’ are well written, performed and produced, but they cast aside the interesting flourishes and replace them with all-out mainstream gloss. They’re good, but in a very different way. ‘Saturdays’ is very different – more of an impromptu skit than a song, it’s a good antidote to the tracks before it, but it’s a bit grating on repeated listens. After this, the album dribbles unsatisfactorily to an end. ‘Build You Up’ is dull, ‘Island Of Wonder’ is an culture classh many times more awkward than the first few tracks, and ‘Childhood Dreams’ is an anticlimactic ending. A shame – stick to the beginning, and the album seems much better.

‘Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant’ by Belle and Sebastian

By album number four, the early Belle and Sebastian formula feels a little strained. The songs on ‘Fold Your Hands’ are still good, and they’re being performed well enough, but somehow, it doesn’t quite feel enough.

So, the problem isn’t the quality of songs. Some of them – ‘I Fought In A War’, ‘The Model’, ‘The Wrong Girl’ – are excellent, but they need an extra sparkle. ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’, their next proper album would contain that sparkle, matching the ambition of this album to a producer who could handle it. It would have been great to know what Trevor Horn could have done with a track like the closing ‘There’s Too Much Love’ – a track which has a good song buried within it, but which sounds slightly messy all in all.

However, fans of Belle and Sebastian should find enough in this album to make it a worthwhile listen. Only ‘The Chalet Lines’ really doesn’t work. Perhaps it’s possible to place a song about rape onto a light hearted pop album without sounding horribly crass, but not on this evidence.

'Flying Low EP' by Bell Jar

Bell Jar were the highlight of my one and only trip to the Greenbelt festival. As the band that rose from the ashes of Eden Burning, I had high hopes, and I wasn’t disappointed. The band had, by that point, released one album, and this, a follow-up EP, both of which I bought there and then.

This EP, then, acts as a taster for the album they were preparing at the time. It consists of four tracks, all of which are great. ‘Cage The Bird Up’ is a low-level anthem enhanced by a simple but effective brass section. ‘It Hurts’ is a downbeat but heartfelt song which shows demonstrates the key characteristics of a Paul Northup lyric – based on faith, but ambiguous enough to feel accessible without being preachy. ‘One Needle’ is a well constructed groove-based song with a muted lead trumpet line – the song least likely to have been recorded by Eden Burning. ‘The Longer The Better’ is a fitting close – bigger, more sprawling, and with just a hint of funk towards the end.

I imagine this is pretty rare – Bell Jar never hit the comparative heights Eden Burning managed, and I’m not sure whether or not they still exist – but it’s a little gem.