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My personal favourite on this album is Val for it's wonderful build up and vocal harmony.
It's worth mentioning that the singer's voice is the best I have heard and he seems to pull of some simple but moving tricks with it that tend to make the songs for me. If you like his voice you'll want to buy all the Czars albums immediately.
But there aren't many record stores to speak of. Well, at least none worth mentioning. It became very frustrating to me to be surrounded by so much beauty, but I couldn't buy new music to compliment it. Darn.
So I take a trip to Denver. Enter fabulous record stores, and enter the Czars. I picked up this CD after seeing a positively inspiring live set.
It's a subtle little nugget of quiet melodies and textures. Unlike their live show which builds on layers of guitar and a relaxed, jam-like atmosphere, 'Before, But Longer' is a confident, well planed album. It doesn't have to get gimmicky or loud to make it's point. It lays down simple, insanely catchy melodies. Adds some nice harmonies, but stays away from adding much else. It's warm and expansive... much like the beautiful scenery I mentioned earlier.
'Before But Longer' is perfect with tea and toast. Or even a spiked lemonade. But it's also great with a beer and a burger. An accomplished album. Highly reccomended for all you folks who like Tarnation, Low, Cocteau Twins, Wilco, and... dare i say it, Badly Drawn Boy. Yup.
The most unique thing the Czars have going for them is singer/songwriter John Grant. Grant has one of those great gifts of a voice. His voice has incredible power, sometimes sounding like Dominic Appleton of Breathless, drawing out phrases like on the song "any younger", or at other times like Gordon Sharp of Cindytalk and the first This Mortal Coil album. At other times, Grant sings so sweet and mellifluously it reminded me of honey-voiced folk singer Jonathan Edwards, especially on "val", "stay" and "pressure". Still, at other times his voice reminds me of Mark Hollis (late Talk Talk and his self titled album) in its honest searching for the one note to finally land on which is most emotionally true and vulnerable.
I gave the album 4 stars because there are some beautiful songs here, a great production, and a rich sound. Its an album that really grows on you over repeated listenings. What weakens the album for me is the country stylings (I simply can't stand country music) on some of the songs. Somehow it is less annoying when Mojave 3 does it, maybe because they're English and they're just borrowing it, whereas the Czars are American and seem to be emulating it. I don't know; its just my personal gripe. Also, for me, they could have left the Walker/Pierce country standard, "Leavin' on Your Mind", off the end of the album. John Grant and guest vocalist Paula Fraser probably had fun recording it, but crying into my beer in some rural Texas saloon while cowboys slow dance is just not my idea of a good time. But, oh.........Grants voice; its hard to get around its beauty.
A good album; balancing between traditional and more experimental songwriting. My personal tastes would have liked it to have fallen a little more towards the experimental. Its like the Czars could be even a little more interesting than they are.
Some of them, like "Val," "Get Used to It," "What I Can Do For You" and "Leavin' on Your Mind," are wonderful, showcasing Mr. Grant's voice to its fullest, most ethereally down-to-earth advantage. But others - "Gangrene" is a pretty good example - are trying to be some kind of screaming rock music, and that is not the best genre for the Czars. Mr. Grant's voice was made to croon or whisper or sing sweetly into your ear, but not to shout.
That's not to say that this isn't a good album, and a nice introduction to the Czar's work. The album as a whole is a good example of alt. country (for lack of a better genre title for this multi-talented band) at its best. I reccomend it heartily.
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